Alaska Airlines, Horizon Air Flights Affected By Internet Outage In Seattle

A Sprint fiber network cable severed in the Seattle area Monday significantly delayed Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air flights through the day. Sprint provides the airlines with connectivity to SABRE, the system the carriers use for reservations, to check in passengers and to purchase tickets.

Sprint Internet service was disrupted a 0730 PDT and was restored about noon, Alaska Air said in a news release. As of noon, the two airlines had canceled 70 flights, affecting more than 6,000 passengers. More than 130 flights had departed, some up to four hours late.

"We apologize for this disruption to our customers," Alaska Airlines President and CEO Brad Tilden said. "We've been working aggressively with Sprint and SABRE to get our operations back to normal as quickly as possible and will maintain our efforts until we get all of our customers where they need to go."

Alaska IT specialists worked with Sprint and SABRE throughout the morning to find an alternative way to restore a connection that would allow customers to check in. In the meantime, Alaska implemented a manual process to check in passengers, however, the process was very slow. It was not reported how the cable was severed.

FMI: www.alaskaair.com