Alaska Airlines has restored service after a technology outage forced it to ground flights across the country Thursday night.
In a statement released early Friday morning, the carrier said the ground stop it requested from the FAA was lifted around 11:30 p.m. Pacific time.
“We are working to get our operations back on track as quickly and safely as possible,” the airline said.
Over 229 flights were canceled, Alaska acknowledged, and continued disruptions are “likely” as the carrier repositions its aircraft and crews.
“We appreciate the patience of our guests whose travel plans have been disrupted,” the statement continued. “We’re working to get them to their destinations as quickly as we can. Before heading to the airport, we encourage flyers to check their flight status. A flexible travel policy is in place to support guests as operations return to normal.”
Alaska requested a ground stop for mainline and Horizon Air flights after a “failure” at its primary data center around 3:30 p.m. Pacific time on Thursday. Airline leaders said the outage interfered with systems “that enable us to run various operations” but did not compromise the safety of its flights.
Hawaiian Airlines flights were not affected.
Alaska emphasized that the outage was “not a cybersecurity event” and was “not related to any other events.”
Alaska experienced a similar IT-related outage in July that grounded flights across its system for about three hours.
