Alaska Airlines suspended flights from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac Airport) late Monday morning for about 40 minutes due to computer problems, the company said in a statement.

“This morning we experienced an IT issue that resulted in a significant disruption to our operations, including delayed flights,” said the airline’s brief statement emailed to KIRO Newsradio.

Alaska Air added that it had requested a brief ground stop at Sea-Tac Airport to “clear the aircraft congestion on the ground.” The ground stop began at 11:20 a.m. and ended at noon.

“We sincerely apologize to our affected guests and are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible,” the statement concluded.

The disruption also affected the airline’s website. A banner at the top of the airline’s homepage, which was visible for some time on Monday afternoon, said that there were “issues booking flights on alaskaair.com, through the mobile app and in the contact center.” Customers were asked to try again later. The banner was removed on Monday between 3 and 3:25 p.m.

As The Seattle Times noted in its reporting, the outage occurred at the start of Cyber ​​Monday sales in Alaska. This sale runs until Wednesday.

Alaska Airlines experienced multiple technical problems in 2024

Alaska Airlines briefly suspended its flights in Seattle on a Sunday evening in September due to “significant disruptions” caused by an unspecified technology issue that was resolved around 10 p.m. local time, The Associated Press (AP) reported.

In comments from his account on X to customers complaining about delays and problems with the airline’s app and website, the airline apologized for the delays. It was later reported that the problem had been resolved. The exact reason for the disruption was unclear.

The Seattle-based airline also experienced problems on a weekday morning in April. According to the AP, a statement said it had requested a grounding of all Alaska and Horizon flights out of an abundance of caution after “an issue occurred while conducting an upgrade to the system that calculates our weight and balance.”

Alaska Airlines’ ground stop lasted from approximately 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. when flights resumed. The airline said that day it expected delays to remain throughout the day and recommended travelers check their flight status before heading to the airport.

The grounding came as Senate Committees held two hearings to examine the allegations serious security deficiencies at Boeing, which has been in crisis mode since a door plug panel was blown off a 737 Max jetliner during an Alaska Airlines flight in January.

Contribution: The Associated Press