Alaska Airlines paused its operations for several hours late on July 20 due to what the company called, «a significant IT outage» that affected its operations.

About three hours later, flights resumed and the company posted on X: «Alaska Airlines has resolved its earlier IT outage and has resumed operations. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, and encourage guests to check your flight status before heading to the airport.»

The delays affected Alaska Air and Horizon Air flights at airports including Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where about 49 flights were canceled and 43 were delayed as of the moving of July 21, according to a local report.

In an email to CNET, Alaska Air gave more details about what caused the outage on Sunday. «A critical piece of multi-redundant hardware at our data centers, manufactured by a third-party, experienced an unexpected failure,» the company said in an email.

«When that happened, it impacted several of our key systems that enable us to run various operations, necessitating the implementation of a ground stop to keep aircraft in position. The safety of our flights was never compromised,» Alaska Air said. «We are currently working with our vendor to replace the hardware equipment at the data center.» 

The company added the outages were not related to a cybersecurity incident that affected Hawaiian Airlines in June.

In total, more than 150 flights were canceled, including 64 cancelations on Monday. «Additional flight disruptions are likely as we reposition aircraft and crews throughout our network,» the company said.

What customers can do

If you were or continue to be impacted by the disruption, you’re probably wondering what to do next. 

«We appreciate the patience of our guests whose travel plans have been disrupted,» said the airline. «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.»

Last year, rules changed on what customers are entitled to when flights are canceled or delayed. Although airlines have tried to roll back those rules under a new presidential administration, they’re still in place. 

Those changes to compensation called for automatic, prompt refunds for canceled or significantly delayed flights without requiring customers to jump through excessive hoops to get compensation.  The determination for a refund often depends on whether a cancelation resulted in a wait time of three or more hours. 

According to the Department of Transportation’s Airline Cancelation Delay Dashboard, Alaska Airlines has some of the more flexible customer policies regarding delays and cancelations, 

Alaska’s customer service line is at 1-800-252-7522. They also offer a Help Center web page that includes an AI-powered chatbot called Ask Alaska.