Alaska Airlines has fixed the computer problem that delayed flights Monday across its 64-airport network on the West Coast and in Mexico and Canada, and operations slowly were returning to normal.
The problem was caused by a severed fiber optic line that cut the Seattle-based airline’s connection to its ticketing system at 7:40 a.m.
Lines of frustrated passengers grew at the airline’s Sea-Tac hub and at other airports as the company was unable to put passengers on planes, except by handwritten paperwork.
Alaska Airlines said the data connection was restored before 1 p.m. but passengers could still expect some delays as the system adjusted.
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.
The airline told waiting passengers at Sea-Tac they could rebook later at no charge.
About half the flights at Sea-Tac are Alaska Airlines or its sister airline, Horizon Air.
No other airlines or any airplanes at Sea-Tac were affected by the problem.
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. It has an average of 436 flights a day at 64 destinations. (AP)
