Tech Troubles Ground Alaska Airlines Twice in Four Months

Alaska Airlines is facing some serious tech issues. In just four months, they've had two big IT failures. The first one was in July. A hardware problem at their data center stopped all flights for three hours. Even though they had backup systems, both the main and backup hardware failed. This caused problems for four whole days. Then, just last Thursday, another IT issue hit their main data center. This time, flights were grounded for about eight hours. Over 400 flights were canceled, affecting nearly 49, 000 passengers. Alaska Airlines said this isn't good enough. They know people trust them to fly safely and on time. They haven't said what caused the latest outage or if it's related to the one in July. But they are bringing in outside experts to check their whole IT system. They want to make sure this doesn't happen again. The outages didn't affect safety, but they did cause a lot of trouble for passengers. Some people were stuck on planes, others waited in long lines, and many had trouble rebooking flights. Some had to wait hours just to talk to someone from the airline. One traveler, Andrew Moore, was stuck in Denver. His flight home to Seattle was canceled twice. Another passenger, Rebecca Jameson, had her flight canceled after waiting for hours. She was rebooked for an early morning flight, but that got canceled too. Paul Schumacher was on a flight to Seattle when the IT problem happened. His plane had to land at a different airport. He had to pay $135 for an Uber to get his car. He hopes Alaska will invest in better backup systems. Experts say these outages won't hurt Alaska's reputation much. People usually choose airlines based on schedule and network, not occasional tech problems. But Alaska Airlines knows they need to do better. They are working to fix these issues and make their IT systems more reliable.