Alaska Airlines stopped all of its planes on the ground on Thursday because of a technology failure that seriously affected its operations. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said that the temporary stop also affected Horizon Air, its regional subsidiary.
The airline asked for the ground stop to last 1 hour and 10 minutes, ending at 0000 GMT.
What caused the disruption
The main reason for the mass grounding was that an IT failure disrupted all of Alaska Airlines’ operations. The airline didn’t say what the technical breakdown was or what caused it, but it did talk about it on social media.
Alaska Airlines announced in a statement put online, “Alaska Airlines is having an IT outage that is affecting operations.” There is a temporary ground stop. Sorry for the trouble. Please check the status of your flight before going to the airport if you are flying tonight.
The airline also directly addressed passenger complaints, such as problems with the app and internet booking, saying, “Unfortunately, we are having a problem with our system, but our IT team is working to fix it as soon as possible.”
The ground stop caused a lot of problems for the airline’s network. For example, reports say that 71 aircraft were delayed at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport alone.
Problem with IT again
Alaska Airlines has forced to halt all of its planes because of technical problems for the second time this year. In July, all flights were grounded for around three hours because of an IT outage that the airline later said was caused by a piece of hardware at a data center breaking down.
The present ground stop was supposed to be brief, but the last one caused a lot of delays and cancellations that lasted into the next day. This shows how easily the airline’s operating procedures can break down.