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Alaska Airlines grounded all flights nationwide today after experiencing a significant IT outage that disrupted operations across its network. The airline confirmed that the issue stemmed from a failure at its primary data center that forced a temporary systemwide ground stop for both Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air (its regional subsidiary).
The outage began around 3:30 PM PST, affecting multiple critical systems used to manage flight operations, dispatch, and communication. As a result, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a ground stop at approximately 7:30 PM EST at the airline’s request. This halted all Alaska and Horizon departures nationwide.
The airline emphasized that flight safety was never compromised, but the inability to access key operational systems made it impossible to continue normal operations. Hawaiian Airlines flights were not impacted by the outage.
The outage forced Alaska Airlines to cancel numerous flights across the United States, stranding thousands of travelers and disrupting schedules at major hubs like Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), and Portland International Airport (PDX). Alaska has urged passengers to check flight statuses before heading to the airport and announced a flexible travel policy to assist affected customers with rebooking.
As of this evening, the airline had begun restoring systems, but delays and cancellations continued to ripple across the network as crews and aircraft repositioned. According to the airline, the issue originated from a hardware failure in its primary data center, not from a cybersecurity incident or external event. Engineers scrambled to bring systems back online. The carrier apologized to customers for the disruption and said teams were “working to get travelers to their destinations as quickly as possible.”
This marks the second major IT outage for Alaska Airlines in 2025. In July, a separate system failure halted flights for roughly three hours. This led to more than 200 cancellations and affected over 15,000 passengers. That incident was also traced to a hardware malfunction at a data center.
Alaska issued the following statement tonight:
Alaska Airlines is experiencing an IT outage that has resulted in a systemwide ground stop of Alaska and Horizon Air flights across our network, causing delays and cancellations. The IT outage does not affect Hawaiian Airlines flights. The issue began around 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 24, with a failure at our primary data center.
The IT outage has impacted several of our key systems that enable us to run various operations, necessitating the implementation of the ground stop to keep our aircraft in position. The safety of our flights was never compromised.
The IT outage is not a cybersecurity event, and it’s not related to any other events.
We deeply apologize to our guests whose travel plans have been disrupted today. We’re working to get them to their destinations as quickly as we can. For those who have a flight with us, please check your flight status before leaving for the airport. Also, a flexible travel policy is in place to support our guests.”
Alaska Airlines operates approximately 1,500 flights daily across the United States and 12 international destinations. The latest outage underscores the growing vulnerability of airlines to technology infrastructure failures, particularly as carriers increasingly rely on integrated digital systems for operations and passenger management. While the airline’s safety protocols prevented any in-flight issues, the cascading effect of such outages highlights how critical IT stability is to modern air travel.
Most systems are now back online and efforts were underway to clear the backlog of delayed flights, though residual disruptions are expected into tomorrow. For now, passengers are advised to monitor their flight status closely and take advantage of rebooking options as Alaska Airlines works to recover from yet another costly technology failure.
Anthony’s Take: As we’ve seen with Delta, Southwest, Alaska, and others, tech issues can become a nightmare quickly and wreak havoc across the system. It looks like Alaska has this under control, but it is unsettling that it has happened twice in just a few months.
(Image Credits: Alaska Airlines.)
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