Sawt Falasteen - Alaska Airlines requests grounding of fleet citing 'IT outage'

The airline told AFP that on Sunday it "experienced an IT outage that's impacting our operations" and that it "requested a temporary, system-wide ground stop for Alaska and Horizon Air flights until the issue is resolved."

The FAA status page showed all destinations being impacted by the ground stop of Alaska's mainline aircraft.

It did not immediately respond to AFP's requests for comment.

Alaska Airlines apologized for the disruption, urging travelers to check their flight status before heading to the airport.

"We apologize to our guests for this inconvenience," it said in a statement.

"There will be residual impacts to our operation throughout the evening."

The statement, also posted on X, drew a backlash from what appeared to be frustrated passengers.

"This is brutal. We've been sitting at the airport for two hours," wrote an X user named Caleb Heimlich in reply.

Another user, BetterDays, commented: "This started at 8 pm & you're just posting this now?! Your service has gone way down over the last 5 years."

The incident comes more than a year after a door plug section of a newly delivered Boeing 737 Max 9 blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight between Portland, Oregon and Ontario, California in January last year.

The 171 passengers and six crew members survived the rapid decompression, but the incident focused minds at the FAA, which grounded many Boeing 737-9 aircraft operated by US airlines. 

Last month, US investigators said Boeing's failure to provide adequate training to manufacturing staff was a driving factor in the near-catastrophic Alaska Airlines mid-flight blowout.

Alaska Air Group has a fleet of 325 aircraft, comprising 238 Boeing 737 planes and 87 Embraer 175 aircraft, according to its website.

J.AbuHassan--SF-PST