Alaska Airlines temporarily grounded all flights across the United States on Thursday following a major IT outage that the carrier said was caused by a failure at its primary data center.
The Seattle based airline issued a temporary ground stop around 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time after experiencing technical problems that affected multiple key systems. “The IT outage has impacted several of our key systems that enable us to run various operations,” the airline said.
Operations were restored after the ground stop was lifted at 11:30 p.m. Pacific Time, but the airline reported more than 229 flight cancellations. The company warned that additional flight disruptions were likely as it repositioned aircraft and crews throughout its network.
The airline stated that the issue began around 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 23, with a failure at its primary data center. Company officials emphasized that the outage was not a cybersecurity event and was not related to any other incidents. The airline also confirmed that the safety of flights was never compromised.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued the ground stop at the airline’s request, affecting both Alaska Airlines and its regional subsidiary Horizon Air. Hawaiian Airlines, which operates under the same parent company, was not affected by the outage.
The disruption threatened to cause significant flight delays across the airline’s network, which includes several major hubs on the West Coast including Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. One traveler in Austin, Texas, reported that Alaska Airlines gates were jammed as delays piled up, with some passengers allowed to leave planes after waiting over an hour.
Alaska Airlines is one of the largest U.S. carriers, primarily centered on the West Coast, and services 140 destinations worldwide, including 37 states and 12 countries.
This marks the second major IT outage for Alaska Airlines this year. In July, a similar technical problem halted flights for approximately three hours. The airline also experienced an outage after a systems upgrade in April 2024.
The airline issued a travel waiver to allow passengers additional flexibility to change or cancel their flights. Alaska Airlines has made guarantees for passenger accommodations when major flight disruptions occur within the carrier’s control, and technical outages generally fall under that category, according to company policies.
The disruption comes as U.S. air travel faces broader challenges following a government shutdown that began October 1, 2025. The shutdown has led to staffing shortages among air traffic controllers, who are required to work without pay, causing flight delays at several airports nationwide.
The airline encouraged travelers to check flight status before heading to airports and apologized for the inconvenience caused by the outage.
