Alaska Airlines computer system back up and running
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SEATTLE (AP) - Alaska Airlines said flights were running close to normal late Monday after a fiber-optic outage shut down its ticketing system for more than four hours, causing the airline and its regional carrier to cancel 78 flights, affecting nearly 7,000 customers.
More than 130 other flights departed during the disruption, but some were delayed for as long as four hours, the airline said.
"Flights are running real close to schedule right now in all major cities. We expect tomorrow to be back on track completely," airline spokeswoman Marianne Lindsey said Monday evening.
The problems started shortly before 8 a.m. when computers the airline uses to check in passengers went down, forcing employees to board travelers manually - in some instances sticking handwritten flight numbers to computer monitors.
The problems were caused by two severed fiber-optic lines in Sprint's network.
Most affected were Alaska's hub cities of Seattle, Portland, Ore., Los Angeles, Anchorage, Alaska, and the San Francisco area, Lindsey said.
Alaska Airlines and its regional partner carriers fly to 95 cities. Spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said it wasn't immediately possible to say how many were affected. The 78 cancellations represent roughly 10 percent of 761 daily flights, she said.
At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, frustration grew along with the lines of passengers waiting to check in, though some travelers simply sat or lay down and waited. Lines stretched out the door earlier Monday in the Alaska Airlines part of the terminal.
Airline representatives apologized and said technicians were working as fast as possible to restore the connection to the company's Sabre reservation system.
No other airlines at Sea-Tac were affected by the problem, airport spokesman Perry Cooper said.
Passengers who had their travel disrupted were told they could quickly rebook without a change fee.
The problem was caused by a combination of two cut cables in Sprint's fiber-optic network. One occurred at a construction site along railroad tracks between Chicago and Milwaukee and the other was somewhere between Portland and Seattle, said Sprint spokeswoman Crystal Davis in Reston, Va.
"Typically if there's just one cut, traffic reroutes automatically," Davis said. "Because there were two cuts within hours of each other, it caused this disruption."
The Chicago-Milwaukee cable was cut accidentally due to some kind of work or maintenance, Davis said, adding she did not know who was doing the work.
The second cut involved an aerial cable that runs along power lines. It wasn't clear late Monday how that got cut, Davis said.
Seattle-based Alaska Airlines is the seventh-largest U.S. airline based on passenger traffic and is the dominant U.S. West Coast air carrier, according to its website.
Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air are owned by the Alaska Air Group.
More than 130 other flights departed during the disruption, but some were delayed for as long as four hours, the airline said.
"Flights are running real close to schedule right now in all major cities. We expect tomorrow to be back on track completely," airline spokeswoman Marianne Lindsey said Monday evening.
The problems started shortly before 8 a.m. when computers the airline uses to check in passengers went down, forcing employees to board travelers manually - in some instances sticking handwritten flight numbers to computer monitors.
The problems were caused by two severed fiber-optic lines in Sprint's network.
Most affected were Alaska's hub cities of Seattle, Portland, Ore., Los Angeles, Anchorage, Alaska, and the San Francisco area, Lindsey said.
Alaska Airlines and its regional partner carriers fly to 95 cities. Spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said it wasn't immediately possible to say how many were affected. The 78 cancellations represent roughly 10 percent of 761 daily flights, she said.
At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, frustration grew along with the lines of passengers waiting to check in, though some travelers simply sat or lay down and waited. Lines stretched out the door earlier Monday in the Alaska Airlines part of the terminal.
Airline representatives apologized and said technicians were working as fast as possible to restore the connection to the company's Sabre reservation system.
No other airlines at Sea-Tac were affected by the problem, airport spokesman Perry Cooper said.
Passengers who had their travel disrupted were told they could quickly rebook without a change fee.
The problem was caused by a combination of two cut cables in Sprint's fiber-optic network. One occurred at a construction site along railroad tracks between Chicago and Milwaukee and the other was somewhere between Portland and Seattle, said Sprint spokeswoman Crystal Davis in Reston, Va.
"Typically if there's just one cut, traffic reroutes automatically," Davis said. "Because there were two cuts within hours of each other, it caused this disruption."
The Chicago-Milwaukee cable was cut accidentally due to some kind of work or maintenance, Davis said, adding she did not know who was doing the work.
The second cut involved an aerial cable that runs along power lines. It wasn't clear late Monday how that got cut, Davis said.
Seattle-based Alaska Airlines is the seventh-largest U.S. airline based on passenger traffic and is the dominant U.S. West Coast air carrier, according to its website.
Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air are owned by the Alaska Air Group.
Lucky us ... we were on our way to Hawaii that day. Scared to death the flight would get cancelled. After about three hours, we were on our way. LOTS of people!!
Conspiracy theories are generally whacked... but the odds of two cable cuts in two different parts of the country are long odds indeed.
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And the comments from the arm chair quarterbacks about not having a disaster recovery plan are the ignorant putting their "wares" on display for all to see.
 @CountryCharacter Long shot indeed.  Two wires, two states,, two different time zones etc.  Odd is right!
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I fly Alaska a lot on business. Glad I didn't fly today.Â
are the computer back up will planes be going tomorrow i have a flight tomorrow to cali will i make it?
right on Billy!!! I can't believe a company this large wouldn't have a Disaster Recovery in place 7x24! I hope this changes this ridiculous fact!
 @Joy Diana Thompson I'm not sure I understand your concern.  They were able to process check-ins and tickets manually only an hour or two after the initial loss of their computer system. Â
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If you were referring to a network disaster recover (i.e. a backup system), it seems that Alaska Airlines didn't have any computer or network issues, it was Sprint. Â And Sprint did have redundancy, but in this highly unusual situation 2 of their fiber lines were cut at the same time in different locations. Â They would have needed some kind of triple redundancy to avoid the situation that they faced today, which is not a common practice for any business.
Someone in IT is going to get wacked because they didn't have a redundant plan for disaster recovery......
 @Billy Gibbs I am sure that someone in IT could have tethered a cell phone as a 4G internet modem to a computer or server and got information out that way around the fiber optic break.
 @JAP506  @Billy Gibbs As a telecom installer, I will say it isn't that simple. The problem was in reaching Sprint's servers. Alternate devices would still have to find a way to get through one of the severed fibers. You are talking Sprint, here, not Verizon. Look at their 4G service map sometime.
From Sprint's own site: "Customers in Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Kansas City, San Antonio and Waco are already experiencing 4G LTE service and improved 3G coverage."
Notice that Seattle is NOT a Sprint 4G location.
 @Billy Gibbs "The problem was caused by a combination of two fiber optic cuts in the Sprint system. One occurred at a construction site along railroad tracks between Chicago and Milwaukee and the other was somewhere between Portland and Seattle, said Sprint spokeswoman Crystal Davis in Reston, Va."
That is the very essence of "redundant". Unfortunately, when both paths fail (an extremely remote probability) then you get a SNAFU like this.
Triple redundancy is astronomically expensive, and not usually worth the extra $$$ it costs.
 @Glassman  @Billy Gibbs until something like this happensÂ
I think it's funny how KOMO still has Alaska Airlines in the title of the article, but does not mention the name Sprint in the title at all.
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This is Sprint's problem and it affects numerous businesses and residential customers. Â I think a more appropriate title would be "Sprint network outage causes Alaska Airline flight delays".
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The reality is, Alaska Airlines didn't have any computer problems, it was Sprints network that had problems.
 @Landshark I agree, Sprint should be front and center in the story but all you hear about is Alaska airlines inconvienced passengers.  Could have been worse for them...
 @Landshark Alaska contracted with Sprint for it's services when those services went down it was both companies problem don't ya think? Alaska has a history of shall we say less than stellar IT services and planning so I'm not surprised.Â
 @Landshark Walgreen's was down from the same fiber cut. i could not get my perscription filled this morning.
i would just like to say my internet is fine and has been all morning - so stay calm people. i will continue to send out boring emails, dull facebook updates, lowly scored words on WFF and poor attempts at trolling. Â Â
"We're doing everything we can to get back on track,"
(Snicker) These ain't trains you're running, Alaska. Â :-D
Its McKenna's fault... or it is Inslee's fault.  It is the fault of gun-toting, pot smoking, gay marrying, bible toting muslims pretending to be amish. No, that can't be it, its the back up referee's fault. That must be it!
Wonder who cut the 'cord'... they are in deep do-do...
Good thing I'm flying the other way this afternoon....
Ain't technology grand? It's only going to get worse.
 @Klondiko Did you mean to be ironic by posting this comment on an Internet website?
I guess the "old fashion way" of looking at ID and using a pencil/pen just doesn't work.
 @Michael E. Campbell Yes it does. "An announcement in the Sea-Tac terminal said the airline would check passengers manually."
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Assuming your business computer network will be down for a long period of time and doing things manually can sometimes be more detrimental to your business than just waiting until the systems are working again. Â
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 @Wickedwitch Maybe not for you, but there are people who depend on their Sprint mobile Internet for their work. I am one of them.
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 @Wickedwitch  @TheMadTurk Dial phone landline?
Well now, isn't this a fine mess.  Seems the conspiracy folks would have a hay day with this.  Wonder if this has any relationship to the banking hacking scheme  recently? Â
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@RedMom My thoughts exactly - (as a conspiracy theory semi-believer!) :Â )
 @Joy Diana Thompson  @RedMom Truly makes one wonder just a bit.  See my comment above....
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@RedMom Have you seen the new show Revolution??? If not I recomend it, especially if you like to mess with those who have a conspiricy theory.Â
 @MomOf2  @RedMom Yes, I just caught up on the last few episodes.  Interesting concept for the new season.  I do have to say that I am a little suspicious of two data lines being severed in two different states and time zones at the same time.  Does really made you scratch your head and wonder if there is more to this story that is being let on..  May have to check out smoking gun or dredge report. LOL.
 @RedMom Its probably Huawei and ZTE retaliating over the blocked Sprint deal ;)Â
 @RedMom It was Obama!
 @Cooter_Brown  @RedMom Couldn't be Obama. He was busy loading eggs with cholesterol this morning.
I'm going to conclude based on the comments here, that the issue isn't with Sprint, but with one of the major internet hubs in Seattle, like Level 3 building, etc. Â It seems that multiple ISP's all across western washington are showing signs of very slow internet (my own tests are actually showing normal speeds, but high ping times for multiple sites across the NW which causes the exact experience I'm having and many others are having). Â I think the issue is bigger than just Sprint. Â
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 @Landshark It is Sprint. Sprint owns one of the major fiber lines. Sprint leases bandwidth on these lines to other ISPs and businesses.
Sprint Cell service not available in Spanaway/Graham area, nor can I access Sprint website. Â Related?
Hmmm, network connection or still running COBOL on the back-end?
Several sites on the internet are down, which are usually highly reliable. Perhaps they're related?
Comcast's internet is running super slow as well. It's like using dial-up with them as well!!
 @Howbouthat I'm on Comcast in Auburn, it's been really slow this morning.  Kind of odd.  I'm sure it's all related to Sprint's issue.
 @Landshark Yeah, I am in Federal Way and it is taking a long time to load pages.
No problems with my Comcast in Tacoma.
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Wonder is this has any connection with Tacoma Click's problems this morning? It's been like using dial-up!
@Fooey Patooey! I don't know what you have been experiencing but I have been able to stream Netflix online just fine using Click. I was not able to call work to see if I received the promotion I have been looking forward too... they wanted me to call today about it too...
 @james glaser Everything seemed to clear up at about noon for me, so that's no surprise, looking at your time-stamp.
Congrats on your promotion. Or sympathies... whichever is appropriate.
Most of Click's Connections are or at least used to be through AT&T owned backbones.
Sprint is having a major outage. AA is not the only business affected. Still sucks though. Too bad the counter agents can't do anything without the web, maybe they should have had a back-up plan.
 @theToucan Apparently there is a fiber cable cut somewhere in WA or OR. Sprint is aware and working on fixing it. I have cell service (well, text, at least) but no mobile Internet.
 @theToucan Weird. I noticed that my 3G was dropping in and out pretty bad this morning on the bus.  First time in 4 years that there's been an issue.
 @theToucan That might explain the horrible internet speeds I'm getting this morning, web pages all over the place are taking much longer to connect than normal.
@theToucan Maybe they could use their cell phones as access points and tether the system to them. Oh wait, AT&T would start throttling them for reaching their data limits. Never mind.