Alaska, Horizon Flights Grounded Nationwide by IT Outage

Alaska Airlines and its regional partner Horizon Air grounded all flights nationwide due to a major IT outage that began late Sunday evening, resulting in significant disruptions and hundreds of delays, particularly at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The airline requested a system-wide ground stop from the FAA, affecting over 200 aircraft and leading to cancellations and operational challenges at multiple airports. Operations resumed after several hours, but ongoing delays persisted as aircraft and crews were repositioned. Alaska Airlines and the FAA clarified that the outage was not related to the previous year's global IT incident involving Crowdstrike. Investigations into the root cause of the outage are ongoing, and the airline warned travelers to expect residual impacts. Alaska Airlines apologized for the disruption and advised passengers to check flight statuses before traveling.