Alaska Airlines outage update: Airline restores operations after system-wide ground stop caused 229 flight cancellations

Hundreds of Alaska Airlines flights were canceled after an IT outage caused an hours-long ground stop. According to reports by ABC News, the ground stop was finally lifted at 11.30 pm PST, or 2.30 am ET. On Thursday, the airline confirmed that their flights had to be grounded due to a massive IT outage that affected operations. Speaking of the restoration, they shared an update that read,

"Alaska Airlines operations have been restored after a significant IT outage resulted in a system-wide ground stop of flights for Alaska and Horizon. The ground stop was lifted at 11:30 p.m. Pacific."

According to the company, the outage was related to a failure in the primary data center and had nothing to do with a cyberattack. Along with many Alaska Airlines flights, Horizon Air flights also faced cancellation due to the ground stop that is now lifted. For the unversed, Horizon Air is a regional flight owned by Alaska Airlines.

On Thursday, the airline issued a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter. They stated,

"Alaska Airlines is experiencing an IT outage affecting operations. A temporary ground stop is in place. We apologize for the inconvenience. If you're scheduled to fly tonight, please check your flight status before heading to the airport."

In a follow-up tweet, they wrote that they were actively engaged in trying to restore the operations affected by the IT outage. Many netizens reacted to the situation, and a lot of them seemed confused. 

This was the second time this year that Alaska Airlines was affected due to a ground stop

In July 2025, a similar situation happened and impacted Alaska Airlines for about three hours. It is unclear if the latest ground stop was in any way linked to the one that happened months back. At the time, Horizon Air was also impacted along with Alaska Airlines. 

On July 20, the Federal Aviation Administration's website requested to ground all the flights by Alaska Airlines. According to reports by CNN, on July 21, at around 2 am ET, the ground stop was lifted and operations were resumed as well. At the time, no details about the reason behind the outage were initially revealed. The airline, however, warned travelers of delays in their respective flights.

In a statement reported by CNN, the airline said,

"As we reposition our aircraft and crews, there will most likely be residual impacts to our flights. It will take some time to get our overall operations back to normal. We apologize to our guests for this inconvenience."

According to the outlet, the July ground stop led many passengers to be stranded on planes for several hours. Chris Fabregas, a passenger, told CNN at the time,

"As soon as we landed, we moved to the middle traffic lane, and they let us know there was a malfunction in the computer system."

He added that passengers were eventually permitted to get off the plane after waiting for more than three hours.

As for the recent ground stop, social media platforms like X were filled with comments from people to stay updated on the matter.