Alaska Airlines requests grounding of fleet citing 'IT outage'

Alaska Airlines has requested a ground stop for all its mainline aircraft according to an advisory notice by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), with the company citing an "IT outage." 

The airline told AFP that on Sunday it "experienced an IT outage that's impacting our operations" and that it "requested a temporary, system-wide ground stop for Alaska and Horizon Air flights until the issue is resolved." 

The FAA status page showed all destinations being impacted by the ground stop of Alaska's mainline aircraft.

It did not immediately respond to AFP's requests for comment.

The incident comes more than a year after a door plug section of a newly delivered Boeing 737 Max 9 blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight between Portland, Oregon and Ontario, California in January last year.

The 171 passengers and six crew members survived the rapid decompression, but the incident focused minds at the FAA, which grounded many Boeing 737-9 aircraft operated by US airlines.  

Last month, US investigators said Boeing's failure to provide adequate training to manufacturing staff was a driving factor in the near-catastrophic Alaska Airlines mid-flight blowout.