Alaska Airlines restores operations after tech outage grounds flights

By Kanishka Singh and Ismail Shakil (Reuters) -U.S. carrier Alaska Airlines said early on Friday it had restored operations following a technology outage that grounded flights across all airports and led to the cancellation of more than 229 flights. "We are working to get our operations back on track as quickly and safely as possible," the airline said, adding that further flight disruptions were likely. Alaska Air Group said it does not yet have an estimate of the financial impact the disruption may have on its fourth-quarter results. It requested a temporary ground stop on Thursday evening, which also affected Horizon Air, a subsidiary of Alaska Airlines, according to a Federal Aviation Administration advisory. The airlines said the halt was lifted at 11:30 p.m. local time (0630 GMT) on Friday. Alaska Airlines did not disclose the cause of the outage. The airline also addressed customer complaints on social media, responding to posts about booking glitches on its website and questions over whether its app was affected too. "Unfortunately, we are experiencing an error on our system, but our IT team is working to get this resolved as soon as possible," it said on X to user queries. Alaska Air Group reported third-quarter revenue of $3.77 billion after markets closed on Thursday, marking a 23% increase from a year earlier. The company said it postponed its earnings call, originally scheduled for October 24, to allow teams to prioritize guest support and operational recovery. The airline also grounded all of its flights in July for about three hours due to an IT outage. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Ismail Shakil and Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru; Editing by Jamie Freed, Christopher Cushing and Jane Merriman)

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