Alaska Airlines has vowed to do better after the third major IT outage in just over 12 months left 49,000 passengers stranded. The Seattle-based carrier now says it will bring in outside technical experts to review its entire IT infrastructure in an attempt to avoid future meltdowns.
Alaska Airlines IT outage in numbers
- Third major IT incident in just over 12 months
- Latest incident dragged on for eight hours
- 400 flights canceled on Alaska and Horizon
- Over two days, 49,000 passengers were stranded
Problems were first reported at around 3 pm PST on October 23, with the root cause quickly traced the the airline’s primary data center. A nationwide ground stop was issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), with thousands of passengers stranded on planes and in airport concourses as Alaska Airlines desperately worked to resolve the issue.
It would, however, take eight hours before its technical teams could clear the fault and get Alaska’s flights back in the air. By this point, hundreds of flights had already been canceled, and many more were severely delayed.
As a result of the sheer scale of the meltdown, disruption cascaded into the following day, mainly due to the fact that Alaska Airlines now had aircraft and crew scattered in the wrong positions across its network.
Around 200 flight cancellations soon ballooned to more than 400 scrapped flights by early Friday afternoon when Alaska Airlines issued a groveling apology.
“We are deeply sorry for the disruptions this event has caused for so many of our valued guests,” a spokesperson for the airline commented. “We’re working to get everyone to their destinations as quickly as we can.”
The statement added: “We know our guests put their trust in us when they choose to fly with Alaska, and this level of performance is not acceptable. And while safety is our most critical responsibility, the reliability of our operations is an essential expectation of our guests.”
It has perhaps taken Alaska Airlines a little too long to realize that “the reliability of our technology is fundamental to our ability to serve guests and get them to where they need to be.”
This week’s IT meltdown comes just months after a similar incident in July, when Alaska Airlines was forced to issue a nationwide groundstop for all of its flights, and just over 12 months since a third IT outage.
The September 2024 incident was eventually traced to an out-of-date security certificate on its servers. Such a simple cause for what turned into a major operational incident for Alaska underscores just how desperately change is needed.
Passengers will no doubt be asking whether a similar incident could happen again in the near future. It’s pretty clear from Alaska’s messaging that they are dealing with a potential public relations nightmare, especially given that they are almost certainly aware that their IT systems are not nearly as robust as they should be.
That realization, unfortunately, means that, yes, another IT outage and nationwide ground stop could be on the horizon… we just don’t know when. The fact that Alaska Airlines has now brought in outside IT experts is a good sign that the carrier is taking this issue very seriously, but quick fixes are rare.
Matt’s Take – Alaska Airlines is learning the hard way the importance of investing in IT systems
I’ve worked in the aviation industry long enough now to witness firsthand the chaos of repeated IT outages that were the cause of years of underinvestment in up-to-date computer infrastructure.
For years, legacy airlines tried to absolve themselves of blame, arguing that the very fact that they had been around for years was an excuse in itself. The IT system became a patchwork of different hardware and software, with new applications often just layered on top of a mainframe computer that should have been in a museum rather than running a multi-million-dollar operation.
Thankfully, some airlines are now realizing that massive investment RIGHT NOW is required to bring their IT infrastructure into the present day. Passengers are no longer willing to accept excuses, and the constant threat of cyber attacks is a real impetus to get company boards to release the required money.
