All Alaska Airlines flights were suspended Thursday night due to a tech outage.
The airline said in a statement provided to CBS News that it had experienced “an IT outage affecting operations” and had “issued a temporary ground stop.” It did not elaborate on the nature of the outage.
In a follow-up social media post at around 10 p.m. Eastern Time, the airline indicated that its systems may be coming back online, writing that it was “actively restoring our operations following an IT outage.”
However, a little before 11:30 p.m., the airline noted on social media the outage was still ongoing, saying it had “resulted in cancellations of some of our flights this evening and into tomorrow.” The exact number of impacted flights was unclear.
Ground stops are issued by the Federal Aviation Administration, often at the request of airlines.
Alaska Airlines also operates Hawaiian Airlines and Horizon Air. According to the FAA’s advisory, the ground stop included Horizon Air. CBS News has reached out to the FAA for comment.
According to flight tracking website FlightAware, as of late Thursday night, at least 39 Alaska Airlines flights had been canceled and 241 delayed.
Alaska Airlines, one of the largest U.S. carriers, is primarily centered on the West Coast, but services 140 destinations worldwide, including 37 states and 12 countries, according to its website.
Air travel in the U.S. has experienced some stresses as a result of the government shutdown that started at the beginning of the October, with shortages of air traffic controllers causing flight delays at several airports.