Alaska Airlines resumes operations after equipment failure at a data centre grounds all flights

Alaska Airlines aircraft sits in the airline's hangar at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Jan. 10, 2024, in SeaTac, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, File)

Alaska Airlines has resumed operations after the failure of a critical piece of hardware forced the airline to ground all its flights for approximately three hours, but the effects will linger into Monday, the company announced.

The carrier issued a system-wide ground stop for Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air flights around 8 p.m. Pacific time Sunday. The stop was lifted at 11 p.m., the Seattle-based company said in a social media post. More than 150 flights have been canceled since Sunday evening, including 64 Monday.

The airline said “a critical piece of multi-redundant hardware at our data centres, manufactured by a third-party, experienced an unexpected failure.” That affected several of the airlines key systems, but hacking was not involved, and the airline said the incident was not related to any other events like the attack involving Microsoft’s servers over the weekend or the recent cybersecurity event at its Hawaiian Airlines subsidiary in June.

“We appreciate the patience of our guests whose travel plans have been disrupted. We’re working to get them to their destinations as quickly as we can,” the airline said in a statement.

The airline also said it is working with its vendor to replace the hardware at the data centre.

Alaska Airlines led all airlines in cancellations Monday, according to the FlightAware website. Many of the cancellations were at the airline’s major hub of Seattle, but it also canceled flights at airports all over the country.

The Federal Aviation Administration website had confirmed a ground stop for all Alaska Airlines mainline and Horizon aircraft, referring to an Alaska Airlines subsidiary. But the FAA referred all questions to the airline Monday.

The National Transportation Board last month credited the crew of Alaska Airlines flight 1282 with the survival of passengers when a door plug panel flew off the plane shortly after takeoff on Jan. 5, 2024, leaving a hole that sucked objects out of the cabin.

In September, Alaska Airlines said it grounded its flights in Seattle briefly due to “significant disruptions” from an unspecified technology problem that was resolved within hours.

The Associated Press