Alaska Airlines and its regional partner, Horizon Air, experienced a significant system-wide IT outage on Sunday, July 20, 2025, leading to a temporary grounding of all mainline flights across the United States. The disruption, which began around 8 p.m. Pacific Time (11 p.m. ET), lasted for approximately three hours, causing widespread delays and leaving thousands of passengers stranded.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed the ground stop, noting it was requested by Alaska Airlines itself. The airline announced on X (formerly Twitter) that the IT issue resulted in a “temporary, system-wide ground stop for Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air flights.” By 11 p.m. Pacific Time (2 a.m. ET on July 21), the ground stop was lifted, and operations began to resume. However, the airline warned that “residual impacts” to flights, including further delays and cancellations, were likely as aircraft and crews were repositioned. (New York Post, KIRO 7 News)
The sudden halt in operations created considerable chaos at airports. Passengers reported being stuck on boarded planes for hours, with some describing confusion among airline staff. Jaclyn Martin, a passenger affected at Portland International Airport, told KOIN 6 News that the experience left her confidence “a bit shaken.” Another traveler, Ben DeCarlow, recounted a 2.5-hour wait time for the airline’s 1-800 number, highlighting the communication challenges during the outage. Some passengers were advised to retain receipts for hotels and car rentals for potential reimbursement, while others were rebooked for flights on Monday. (New York Post, CNN)
Alaska Airlines, the fifth-largest airline in the U.S., operates a substantial fleet, including 238 Boeing aircraft under its primary brand and 45 aircraft under Horizon Air, serving over 120 destinations across five countries and catering to more than 44 million passengers annually. The airline apologized for the inconvenience and urged all travelers to check their flight status before heading to the airport, emphasizing that it would “take some time to get our overall operations back to normal.” (CNN, Anchorage Daily News)
While the specific cause of the IT outage remains undisclosed, this incident marks the second fleet grounding for Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air in just over a year, following a system upgrade issue in April 2024. The event also comes on the heels of a recent cyberattack on Hawaiian Airlines, a subsidiary of Alaska Air Group, in June 2025, which disrupted some of its IT systems. Although Hawaiian Airlines stated there was no impact on safety from that hack, the FAA confirmed it was monitoring the situation. These incidents underscore growing concerns about cybersecurity vulnerabilities within the aviation sector, especially given recent warnings from tech giants like Google and Palo Alto Networks about the “Scattered Spider” hacking group’s interest in airline systems. (New York Post, Business Insider)
As Alaska Airlines works to stabilize its operations, the focus remains on minimizing further disruption for travelers and addressing the underlying cause of the IT failure to prevent future occurrences.
