Alaska Airlines Grounds Flights After IT Outage

Alaska Airlines temporarily grounded all flights nationwide Thursday evening after an IT outage, posting that a “temporary ground stop is in place” and urging travelers to check flight status before heading to the airport. The FAA confirmed the ground stop applied to Alaska and Horizon Air flights, and passengers reported being stuck on tarmacs and at gates awaiting updates. Alaska said technical teams were working to resolve the issue but offered few details, calling the situation a developing story. This is the second major IT failure for Alaska in roughly three months — a July outage tied to a failed data‑center hardware component caused several hours of grounding, prompted more than 200 cancellations and disrupted about 15,600 travelers. The airline apologized and advised customers to monitor status updates as it works to restore normal operations. Hawaiian Airlines, part of the Alaska Air Group, was reported to be unaffected and continued normal service.