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Key Takeaways
- Alaska Air Group reported an IT outage that caused a ground stop of its flights and those of Horizon Air for several hours.
- It was the second ground stop caused by an IT problem at the airline in three months.
Shares of Alaska Air Group (ALK) flew lower Friday after the airline turned in quarterly profits that were less than expected and reported an IT outage that forced a system-wide ground stop of all flights of its namesake carrier and Horizon Air.
The company said the IT issues began at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) yesterday, and announced the ground stop—meaning certain flights weren’t permitted to take off—at 10 p.m. EDT. It noted that operations had been restored by 3:15 a.m. today.
Why This Is Significant
Alaska Air’s second major IT outage in three months underscores how dependent companies have become on complex digital systems—and how costly failures can be. Tech resilience can be as important as fuel costs or traveler demand in the airline industry.
Alaska Air said the outage was caused by a failure at its primary data center, and “impacted several of our key systems that enable us to run various operations, necessitating the implementation of the ground stop to keep our aircraft in position.” The company said it was not a cybersecurity event and safety of its flights was not compromised.
It was the second IT outage in three months to cause a ground stop for the airline. In July, a problem at its data centers led to more than 200 flight cancellations.
Alaska Air Group also reported third-quarter results, posting adjusted earnings per share of $1.05, short of forecasts. Revenue of $3.77 billion was basically in line with estimates. The company said that costs were higher than expected in part because of the expenses from July’s IT incident.
Alaska Air Group shares were down more than 4% in recent trading. They have lost about 30% of their value year-to-date.
