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Alaska Airlines' statement on IT outage

news.alaskaair.com

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Re: Alaska Airlines' statement on IT outage

#91

Post by tencentshill »

indrora wrote: post #81
djoldman wrote: post #80

Not the main topic, but as I was in the network tab, I noticed that the page is ~3.3MB compressed, 2.4MB of which is the "Alaska Hawaiian" svg logo here: https://news.alaskaair.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Alaska... :(

I was curious why and the answer is stupider than you'd think: The circle in the image is an embedded PNG which has not been pngcrushed at all. Instead of building a few gradients out, it looks like whoever did the export to svg out of Illustrator or whatever let it export this horrendously large circle . With a gradient. That costs 2.5MB.

Maybe it's an easy way to speed up the page load if the boss ever asks them to. You have to carve out a few CYA options when working for a hostile manager.

Re: Alaska Airlines' statement on IT outage

#92

Post by bsimpson »

tschwimmer wrote: post #10

I was affected. Taking off now for a 5:30pm PT flight to Seattle. Aside from clearly not having an appropriate disaster readiness plan, communication was bad even though some information was readily available. For example, there was an inbound ground stop for KSEA for hours, but it was never announced to passengers. We were very lucky the crew was fresh, and there was no discussion of when they would time out. I happ…

Every flight I've taken in the last year has been a clusterfuck. I've spent damn near as much time in airports as I have in the air.

It seriously makes me not want to fly.

Re: Alaska Airlines' statement on IT outage

#93

Post by bsimpson »

sandorscribbles wrote: post #67

i have applied and interviewed at AlaskaAir in order to help my "hometown" airline + get free travel. its not shocking to state they are a very ancient infrastructure that is being run and protected by fiefdoms that refuse to even acknowledge best practices of any infrastructure tech released in the past decade. as a former business traveler of AlaskaAir, i stopped flying on them after the 6th flight in a row that wa…

Virgin America was the best airline in the US and they ruined it by assimilating it into Alaska's kitchyass log cabin motif.

Re: Alaska Airlines' statement on IT outage

#94

Post by somat »

bob1029 wrote: post #77
sandorscribbles wrote: post #67

i have applied and interviewed at AlaskaAir in order to help my "hometown" airline + get free travel. its not shocking to state they are a very ancient infrastructure that is being run and protected by fiefdoms that refuse to even acknowledge best practices of any infrastructure tech released in the past decade. as a former business traveler of AlaskaAir, i stopped flying on them after the 6th flight in a row that wa…

> its not shocking to state they are a very ancient infrastructure that is being run and protected by fiefdoms that refuse to even acknowledge best practices of any infrastructure tech released in the past decade I struggle with the notion that a high quality airline operating system cannot be developed using technologies as of 2015. Most of what we are drowning in right now is the product of the last 10 years. The l…

Hell, you could run a high quality airline on the tech of the 60's. You could run a high quality airline on the tech of the 30's nothing except radios and the planes.

It's not a tech problem, it's a culture problem. Just because the infrastructure is old does not mean that it is bad. The main deciding factor is how well it is maintained. But that is to hard for many people. So much easier to say "It'S bAd bEcAuSe iT is oLd" and walk away.

Re: Alaska Airlines' statement on IT outage

#95

Post by Aloha »

somat wrote: post #94
bob1029 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> its not shocking to state they are a very ancient infrastructure that is being run and protected by fiefdoms that refuse to even acknowledge best practices of any infrastructure tech released in the past decade I struggle with the notion that a high quality airline operating system cannot be developed using technologies as of 2015. Most of what we are drowning in right now is the product of the last 10 years. The l…

Hell, you could run a high quality airline on the tech of the 60's. You could run a high quality airline on the tech of the 30's nothing except radios and the planes. It's not a tech problem, it's a culture problem. Just because the infrastructure is old does not mean that it is bad. The main deciding factor is how well it is maintained. But that is to hard for many people. So much easier to say "It'S bAd bEcAuSe iT…

Most are - irony of irony is that when Delta had its big outage due to CrowdStrike, dealtamatic/deltaterm was still running just fine, but no one could get into it because all of their windows machines were locked out.

At the core of most airlines is a customized version of IBM TPF, its very reliable and highly available, its all of the other stuff that breaks down.

We will in time find out what grounded AS, I wouldnt be surprised if its some sort of middleware connecting their iPads to the CRS they use for ticketing operations, but it could also be something as simple as their weight and balance application going offline.

AS is a fairly well run airline (as are DL, AA and UA) with a heterogeneous mix of systems in service, ideally this heterogeneous nature should make for a more resilient system but it also can lead to single points of failure when you have to glue too many different systems together.

Re: Alaska Airlines' statement on IT outage

#96

Post by Izikiel43 »

croemer wrote: post #16
tschwimmer wrote: post #10

I was affected. Taking off now for a 5:30pm PT flight to Seattle. Aside from clearly not having an appropriate disaster readiness plan, communication was bad even though some information was readily available. For example, there was an inbound ground stop for KSEA for hours, but it was never announced to passengers. We were very lucky the crew was fresh, and there was no discussion of when they would time out. I happ…

For flights departing or arriving in the EU you get fairly nice compensation for significant delays (3+ hours) between 250 EUR ( =1500km). Helps ensure incentives align beyond reputation.

That policy and a long delay I had going from Iceland to London made the whole airfare for the trip (canada to london and back) free. I think I even made money.

However, you have to be insistent, I first filed a complaint with the airline, and when they didn't comply in the given amount of time, I filed a complaint with their regulatory authority, and then suddenly the airline remembered me and gave me the money.

Re: Alaska Airlines' statement on IT outage

#97

Post by Izikiel43 »

jddj wrote: post #49
croemer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For flights departing or arriving in the EU you get fairly nice compensation for significant delays (3+ hours) between 250 EUR ( =1500km). Helps ensure incentives align beyond reputation.

Unless they claim, by noreply email, that it (eg. ATC strike in a 3rd country for which they had 2 weeks' notice) was out of their control and so no compensation is owed. Then you get the pleasure of a phone tree that only allows the option of giving feedback about the noise on the plane or the cleanliness. Then once you get through and manage to plead your case you'll get quarterly emails about how your case is in r…

The law is clear though, if the airline doesn't comply, raise a complaint with the regulatory body of the country they are located. Suddenly they become very friendly (been there, done that, got all the monies)

Re: Alaska Airlines' statement on IT outage

#98

Post by Izikiel43 »

buzer wrote: post #87
MaxikCZ wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, they tend to deflect. Then you send email quoting laws and inform them that next email will be trough lawyers, and they pay out quick (personal experience)

In recent case I quoted the actual law & caselaw and the response I got was that I need to contact the marketing carrier and they will stop responding now. Funnily enough, the carrier I was in contact with was the marketing carrier (as background, codeshare flight was cancelled almost month earlier but I was never informed & I only discovered it when I went to airport). So in my case the next step is to find lawyer.

Have you raised a complaint with the regulatory body they are registered to? That also works well.

Re: Alaska Airlines' statement on IT outage

#99

Post by Izikiel43 »

tschwimmer wrote: post #31
croemer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For flights departing or arriving in the EU you get fairly nice compensation for significant delays (3+ hours) between 250 EUR ( =1500km). Helps ensure incentives align beyond reputation.

Tell me about it. Swiss air refuses to pay out 1800€ in EC261 compensation…

Have you filed a complaint with the swiss air regulatory authority? I did that when Icelandair didn't comply within the allowed timeframe and suddenly they were much more forthcoming.

Re: Alaska Airlines' statement on IT outage

#100

Post by buzer »

Izikiel43 wrote: post #98
buzer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In recent case I quoted the actual law & caselaw and the response I got was that I need to contact the marketing carrier and they will stop responding now. Funnily enough, the carrier I was in contact with was the marketing carrier (as background, codeshare flight was cancelled almost month earlier but I was never informed & I only discovered it when I went to airport). So in my case the next step is to find lawyer.

Have you raised a complaint with the regulatory body they are registered to? That also works well.

NEB in Finland is Traficom, but they don't handle individual complaints. Those handled by Consumer Advisory Services and European Consumer Center & these are residence based as far as I understand (I'm Finnish citizen but I don't live in EU).

The only alternative to court is Consumer Disputes Board but their resolutions are just recommendations & Finnair has a long history of ignoring them so spending 2-3 years there seems like waste of time.

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