Seattle passengers frustrated with cancelled flights over Alaska Airlines ground stop

SEATTLE - A ground stop of all Alaska Airlines flights left many passengers stranded for hours Thursday night.

Passengers described it as a miserable experience, with one man calling the situation "insane."

FOX 13 talked to an aviation expert, who says when a fully integrated IT system like Alaska's goes down, all flights have to be stopped.

What they're saying:

"Flight got delayed, but I’d rather be on the ground rather be here than up there," said Joe Foxx, whose flight was delayed until Friday.

"We were about to board and got a text that our flight was canceled," said Rikki Stenson. Her family's flight was delayed. "We were supposed to be at Disneyland tomorrow morning."

Rikki shared a picture of the family waiting in an airport hallway for information on their flight. 

Bennett and Finnley Stenson, her sons, said they were disappointed, but were happy that their mom had rebooked the trip on a different airline in order to fly out the next day.

"I was a little bummed but at least we will get to go tomorrow morning," they said.

Lesley Yanak said her flight was canceled from Vegas to Pullman. She says she was on her way to board a plane by bus when the buses in the passenger transport caravans suddenly had to stop.

"We couldn’t get out of the bus. There were probably five buses. We eventually were probably on there for 45 minutes. We pounded on the door so the driver opened the door so we could at least get some air," she said.

She gave us this photo of what people could see while waiting to get off the bus.

"We boarded a flight to get to Kalispell. We were on the plane for two hours. They finally said, ‘Everybody is coming off the plane. Go down and get your bags,’" said Marilyn Stuart, whose husband is disabled. She says he has physical challenges that make the situation even more trying.  "We’ve been waiting for our bags for over two hours."

Aviation expert Mike Dunlop says Alaska has experienced similar situations like this in the recent past. 

The backstory:

Back in July, there was another system-wide ground stop, also stemming from an IT outage. That ground stop lasted around three hours. Dunlop tells FOX 13 that Alaska passengers could experience delays beyond the initial freeze on flights.

"The problem is, crews have a maximum amount of time they can spend, then you have to find a replacement crew. Sometimes you have to find a replacement airplane, the logistics of these ground stops, if they last for any time at all, have a lot of repercussions all the way through the network, not even taking into account all the connecting flights," said Dunlop, founder and CEO of Net-Inspect, a software company. 

Dunlop says Seattle has a lot of connecting flights that come through the airport, so that is a challenge when there are ground stops initiated.

He says that Alaska Airlines has grown very fast, and its systems might need to be further updated. 

A spokesperson for SEA Airport said that the ground stop only impacted Alaska Airlines, and that airport operations and other airlines were not affected. 

Alaska also said the IT outage was not a cybersecurity event, but was due to a failure at its primary data center. The airline also apologized and said it had a flexible travel policy in place to help passengers. 

Here's Alaska Airlines' full statement:

"Alaska Airlines is experiencing an IT outage that has resulted in a systemwide ground stop of Alaska and Horizon Air flights across our network, causing delays and cancellations. The IT outage does not affect Hawaiian Airlines flights. The issue began around 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 24, with a failure at our primary data center. The IT outage has impacted several of our key systems that enable us to run various operations, necessitating the implementation of the ground stop to keep our aircraft in position. The safety of our flights was never compromised.

"The IT outage is not a cybersecurity event, and it’s not related to any other events.We deeply apologize to our guests whose travel plans have been disrupted today. We’re working to get them to their destinations as quickly as we can. For those who have a flight with us, please check your flight status before leaving for the airport. Also, a flexible travel policy is in place to support our guests."

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