At least 229 flights have been cancelled
A massive airline system failure has left thousands of travellers facing lengthy delays. Alaska Airlines called for a temporary ground stop early on Friday morning (October 24) which resulted in at least 229 flights being axed.
The number of passengers – including Britons – who may have been delayed or impacted remains unclear. Horizon Air, a subsidiary of Alaska Airlines, was also hit by the disruption. Flight operations have now resumed.
The carrier emphasised that safety was never compromised during the breakdown, which stemmed from a malfunction at the airline’s primary data centre. Matas Cenys, head of product at Saily, explained that even small technical faults can paralyse vital processes, creating chaos for travellers.
They explained: “Airlines today operate on highly interconnected digital systems. When one system fails, the effects can spread across the entire network, grounding flights and disrupting operations. This is why Alaska Airlines’ recent outage, while labeled a ‘technical error’, caused widespread cancellations and delays. Even minor glitches can freeze critical processes because redundancy systems are not always perfect.
“Airlines’ digital systems are like a row of dominoes. Each system – scheduling, crew assignments, baggage, gates – depends on the one before it. If a single one falls, even from something small, like a database error, it can trigger a chain reaction that stops the whole operation. Most passengers never see these links, but that’s how flights keep running on time.
“There’s also a cybersecurity overlap. Even when outages are accidental, system downtime can create potential opportunities for attackers to exploit vulnerabilities. During a disruption, normal safeguards and monitoring may be reduced or delayed, allowing malicious actors to target systems before defences are fully restored.
“Travel runs on trust that systems will work, flights will depart, and bags will arrive. Every outage chips away that confidence. Rebuilding it will require transparency and visible investment in resilience.
“Every outage has a huge human cost. Travelers get stranded in airports, tired and nervous, and airport workers have to operate under stress trying to manage the chaos. This incident should serve as a reminder to the entire travel and tech industry to reassess and reinforce their IT systems.”