Alaska Airlines was forced to cancel and delay some flights on Sunday night after an IT outage crippled multiple computer systems at the Seattle-based carrier, prompting the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to issue a temporary ground stop.
The airline was quick to reassure worried passengers that the outage was not the result of a cyberattack. Engineers eventually pinned the blame on an out-of-date security certificate which needed to be updated.
Customers who attempted to check-in or book flights through the Alaska Airlines mobile app were presented with various error messages, prompting the carrier’s social media team to tell passengers that the airline was experiencing a “significant IT outage”.
A temporary ground stop for arrivals at Alaska’s main hub in Seattle was put in place for around two hours on Sunday night at the request of the airline. The FAA authorized the ground due to what is described as “automation issues”.
The outage comes just weeks after Seattle Tacoma International Airport admitted that it had been the victim of a major ransomware attack by hackers who infiltrated the airport’s computer systems for several weeks before the unauthorized access was eventually detected.
In an attempt to shut the hackers out, IT engineers at the airport had to disable multiple critical systems, including a check-in system used by many airlines at the airport, as well as flight information display screens and a baggage handling system.
The ransomware group known as Rhysida is believed to be behind the attack, and officials fear that the hackers managed to steal data during their attack, including the potential for personal data belonging to employees and passengers.
The Port of Seattle has refused to pay a ransom to have the data returned, saying that doing so would no reflect the Port’s values.
Of course, this latest IT outage comes just several months after the worldwide CrowdStrike outage that affected a number of major airlines. In that outage, Alaska Airlines was unscathed but Delta Air Lines was worst affected when the outage took down its crew scheduling tool.
While other airlines managed to quickly get their operations back up and running, Delta’s crew scheduling took lost track of pilots and flight attendants, leading to an operational meltdown that stranded tens of thousands of passengers.
Delta is now threatening a massive lawsuit against CrowdStrike and Microsoft in an attempt to recover its losses from the outage, although the airline has been criticized for using a legacy software system for crew scheduling that may have been more prone to crashing.
