Airlines Service Restored: Alaska Airlines Resumes Operations Following Temporary Grounding Due to IT Disruption
On Sunday, July 20, 2025, Alaska Airlines temporarily grounded all flights due to a general IT outage that occurred around 8:00 pm Pacific Time. The outage lasted approximately three hours, and flights resumed at 11:00 pm Pacific Time.
The nature of the technical error was not disclosed, and the financial impact of the incident is still undetermined. However, Alaska Airlines has stated that there will be residual impacts on its flights due to the need to reposition aircraft and crews.
Contrary to some speculation, there are no confirmed connections between the July 2025 incident and the "Scattered Spider" hacking group or recent cybersecurity threats reported by tech companies Google and Palo Alto Networks. According to multiple official sources and reports, the 2025 outage was caused by an unexpected hardware failure at Alaska Airlines’ data center, explicitly stated as not a cybersecurity event nor linked to any hacking including recent Microsoft-related attacks or other cyber threats[1][2][4].
Similarly, the previous system issue for Alaska Airlines occurred in April 2024. This incident was linked to an internal system failure related to weight and balance calculations for operational safety, with no confirmed ties to hacking groups like “Scattered Spider”[3].
Alaska Airlines is the fifth-largest airline in the US, serving over 120 destinations across five countries. The airline operates an operational fleet of 238 Boeing 737 aircraft and 87 Embraer 175 aircraft.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed the system-wide ground stop for Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air flights. The FAA also commented that there was no impact on safety during the incident.
In June 2025, Hawaiian Airlines, owned by the Alaska Air Group, experienced a hack that affected part of its IT system. The financial impact of this hack is still undetermined, but it did not result in any flight disruptions.
As Alaska Airlines continues to address the impacts of the July 2025 IT outage, it is expected that it will take some time for the airline's overall operations to return to normal. The airline has reiterated that these outages are operational or hardware failures and not related to any known cyberattacks or hacking groups[4].
[1] https://www.alaskair.com/news/2025/07/alaska-airlines-flight-operations-resume-following-it-outage/ [2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/alaska-airlines-grounds-flights-due-it-outage-2025-07-20/ [3] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/15/alaska-airlines-grounds-flights-due-to-it-system-issue.html [4] https://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=25334
- Despite the IT outage that temporarily halted flights on Alaska Airlines on July 20, 2025, the airline's subsequent system issue in April 2024 was not related to any hacking, as confirmed by multiple official sources.
- Alaska Airlines operates a fleet of 238 Boeing 737 aircraft and 87 Embraer 175 aircraft, serving over 120 destinations across five countries, making it the fifth-largest airline in the US.
- In June 2025, another IT system hack affected Hawaiian Airlines, owned by the Alaska Air Group, but did not result in any flight disruptions, unlike the more widely publicized outage on Alaska Airlines.
- The nature of the technical error that caused the July 2025 outage is yet to be disclosed, although it was confirmed that it was not a cybersecurity event nor linked to any hacking, including recent Microsoft-related attacks or other cyber threats.
