On Sunday 20 July, all Alaska Airlines flights have been temporarily grounded as the company was experiencing its second general IT outage in a little over a year. The issues started around 8:00 pm Pacific and lasted for approximately three hours.
The carrier requested a system-wide ground stop for Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air flights on Sunday evening, as an outage impacted its systems. The nature of the technical error was not disclosed but the system-wide stop was confirmed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) website.
“We are currently experiencing an IT outage that’s impacting our operations. We requested a temporary, system-wide ground stop until the issue is resolved,” Alaska Airlines stated at the time.
Three hours later, at 11:00 pm Pacific Time, all flights were allowed to resume. However, passengers were advised to check their flight information as the impact of the stop might still linger on for quite some time.
“As we reposition our aircraft and crews, there will most likely be residual impacts to our flights. It will take some time to get our overall operations back to normal,” Alaska Airlines said.
It is unclear whether or not the IT issues experienced by Alaska Airlines have something to do with the recent announcements of tech companies Google and Palo Alto Networks. They have warned of a growing interest in the aviation sector by the so-called ‘Scattered Spider’ hacking group. On Sunday 20 July, Microsoft also stated to be experiencing “active attacks” on its server software. That software is widely used by government agencies and businesses but it is unclear if Alaska Airlines’ troubles might be related.
Alaska Airlines grounds fleet for second time in a year over system issues
It is not the first time for Alaska Airlines to ground its entire fleet. Only recently, in June 2025, Hawaiian Airlines – owned by the Alaska Air Group – warned that part of its IT system was impacted by a hack. According to the company, the financial impact of that event still hasn’t been determined.
“There has been no impact on safety, and the airline continues to operate safely. We are monitoring the situation,” the FAA commented on the Hawaiian Airlines hack.
In April 2024, an error with the system that calculates the weight and balance of its planes caused all flights to be suspended. The Alaska Air Group currently has an operational fleet of 238 Boeing 737 aircraft and 87 Embraer 175 aircraft. It is the fifth-largest airline in the US, serving over 120 destinations across five countries.
