Alaska Airlines Grounds Entire Fleet After Sudden IT Outage
Late last night, Alaska Airlines hit an unexpected and disruptive snag—its entire fleet was grounded due to a major IT system outage. If you were planning to fly with them or Horizon Air around that time, chances are your plans were put on hold. The issue began around 8 p.m. Pacific Time on July 20, and it prompted a full, system-wide ground stop that lasted about three hours. By 11 p.m., flights resumed, but not without lingering effects.
Imagine this: over 200 aircrafts, grounded. Airports filled with confused and frustrated passengers. A late-night travel nightmare. Alaska Airlines issued a statement confirming the IT failure and asked travelers to check their flight status before heading to the airport. They also posted updates on their website and social media, assuring passengers they were working urgently to fix the problem.
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The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) supported the ground stop, marking all Alaska and Horizon Air flights as impacted on their status page. The ripple effect of such a halt is huge—flights were delayed, aircraft had to be repositioned, and crews had to be rescheduled. Even though operations resumed after a few hours, Alaska warned that residual delays could continue as the system and schedules were brought back to normal.
This isn’t the first time Alaska Airlines has faced operational chaos. Just over a year ago, in April 2024, they grounded their fleet due to an issue with the aircraft weight and balance system. That incident came not long after the terrifying January 2024 door plug failure at 16,000 feet, which led to a mid-air emergency and a later $1 billion settlement between Boeing and the airline.
These back-to-back issues raise serious questions about reliability and system redundancy in aviation tech. Airlines rely heavily on their IT systems for everything—booking, baggage handling, flight planning, crew assignments. A single point of failure can disrupt an entire airline’s network, as we just saw with Alaska.
While Alaska Airlines has since apologized and resumed operations, they’ve also asked for continued patience from travelers. For now, if you're flying with them, double-check your flight info and prepare for potential delays.
The skies might be open again, but for many passengers, the turbulence is far from over.
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