Alaska Airlines has vowed to make sweeping upgrades to its technology systems after a massive IT outage brought operations to a standstill on Thursday, forcing the cancellation of more than 400 flights and leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded across the United States.
The Seattle-based carrier confirmed Friday that normal operations had been restored following a failure at its primary data center that disrupted travel plans for over 49,000 customers.
The incident prompted Alaska Airlines to request a temporary nationwide ground stop from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) – one that also affected its regional subsidiary, Horizon Air before flights resumed at around 11:30 p.m. Pacific time.
“This level of performance is not acceptable,” the airline said in a statement. “We’re working to get everyone to their destinations as quickly as we can.”
The company emphasized that the outage was not the result of a cyberattack, but rather a technical malfunction that crippled critical flight operations and communication systems.
The disruption marks the second major technology failure for Alaska Airlines in just a few months.
A similar outage in July grounded all flights for roughly three hours and reduced the airline’s third-quarter profit per share by about 10 cents.
Despite previous efforts to bolster its digital infrastructure, Alaska Air Group – the parent company of Alaska Airlines acknowledged that more work is needed to prevent future breakdowns.
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“Following the July incident, we took action to improve our IT systems, but this failure underscores the work that remains to be done to ensure system stability,” the company said.
“We are immediately bringing in outside technical experts to diagnose our entire IT infrastructure to ensure we are as resilient as we need to be.”
The financial fallout from the latest outage is still being assessed. Alaska Air Group warned that it has yet to estimate the impact on its fourth-quarter results, though the market reacted swiftly – shares of the airline plunged 6% in heavy trading on Friday.
The disruption also came at a particularly difficult time for the carrier, which a day earlier had forecast fourth-quarter profits well below analysts’ expectations due to higher fuel costs and ongoing operational challenges.
In light of the outage, Alaska Airlines postponed its scheduled earnings call originally set for October 24.
Aviation analysts say the back-to-back system failures highlight a broader issue plaguing U.S. airlines: aging IT infrastructure that struggles to keep pace with operational complexity and passenger demand.
For Alaska Airlines – long regarded as one of the country’s most reliable mid-sized carriers – the incident serves as both a reputational and logistical test.
As the company works to get stranded passengers to their destinations and restore confidence in its systems, its next steps could determine how well it weathers the turbulence both operationally and financially in the months ahead.
Source: Yahoo Finance
