Temporarily suspended Alaska Airlines in the U.S due to IT outage

Staff Reporter:The airline announced the stoppage at 7:34 p.m. EDT on the social platform X, instructing travelers to check their flight status before heading to the airport.

At 10 p.m., the airline said on X that it is “actively restoring our operations” following the outage. The Hill has reached out to Alaska Airlines for an update and to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for comment.

According to the flight-tracking site FlightAware, 241 Alaska Airlines flights have been delayed as of late Thursday, with 44 such flights cancelled. It is unclear how many of those flights were delayed or cancelled due to the IT outage.

The ground stoppage comes as air travel suffers amid the ongoing government shutdown. Airports around the country experienced a high number of delays over the weekend due to a shortage of air traffic controllers.

Air traffic controllers are working without pay during the shutdown.

Last month, United Airlines issued a temporary ground stoppage due to a connectivity issue, impacting all of its flights in the U.S. and Canada. That same day, a technical issue impacted maintenance operations for American Airlines.

United in August issued a ground stoppage at major U.S. airports amid a technology issue. As a result, over 1,000 flights were delayed.

BP/SM