A system-wide ground stop affecting Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air flights was lifted late Sunday night after an IT outage disrupted operations across the country, the airline said. However, passengers continued to experience cancellations and delays into Monday morning.
The technical issue began around 8 p.m. Pacific Time and led the airline to temporarily ground all flights operated by Alaska and its regional partner Horizon Air.
The ground stop remained in place for approximately three hours.
“As of 11 p.m. Pacific, the ground stop has been lifted, and our operations have resumed,” Alaska Airlines said in an updated statement. “It will take some time to get our overall operations back to normal.”
The airline warned that travelers may still experience delays or cancellations as crews and aircraft are repositioned.
Passengers with upcoming flights were urged to check their flight status before heading to the airport.
The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the ground stop Sunday evening via its status page but did not provide further information.
Alaska Airlines has not released details about the specific cause of the IT failure.
At approximately 8 p.m. Pacific on July 20, we experienced an IT outage that resulted in a temporary, system-wide ground stop for Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air flights.
— Alaska Airlines News (@AlaskaAirNews) July 21, 2025
As of 11 p.m. Pacific, the ground stop has been lifted, and our operations have resumed.
As we reposition…
On Monday morning, KIRO 7’s Brooke Griffin spoke to multiple passengers at SEA Airport who were continuing to struggle with delays.
“We just want answers,” said Charles, who was trying to get home to Florida. “We’ve been here since 6 p.m. [Sunday], they’re now telling us we’re leaving Tuesday night at 11:59 [p.m.]. They’re not giving us anything... there’s no hotels, there’s no nothing. They want us to stay here for two more days.”
At one point, Alaska Airlines made an announcement to waiting travelers at SEA, “All flights are full. Take what you can get. If you don’t get on the flight we give you, you may not get another.”
Alaska Airlines released the following statement Monday morning:
“We’re working to get our operations back on track today at Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air after a significant IT outage Sunday night resulted in a system-wide ground stop of flights, which was lifted at 11 p.m. Pacific.
A critical piece of multi-redundant hardware at our data centers, manufactured by a third-party, experienced an unexpected failure. 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.
Since Sunday evening, we’ve had more than 150 flight cancellations, including 64 cancellations today. Additional flight disruptions are likely as we reposition aircraft and crews throughout our network.
The IT outage is not related to any other current events, and it’s not connected to the recent cybersecurity incident at Hawaiian Airlines.
We are currently working with our vendor to replace the hardware equipment at the data center.
We appreciate the patience of our guests whose travel plans have been disrupted. 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."
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