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  • Alaskan Airlines IT outage grounds their fleet

    From vallor@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jul 21 05:55:15 2025
    SEATAC, Wash. — Alaska Airlines requested a temporary ground stop
    for Alaska and Horizon Air flights Sunday evening due to an IT
    outage, the airline told KING 5.

    The "system-wide" ground stop will continue until the issue is
    resolved, according to the airline.

    "We apologize to ours guests for this inconvenience," the airline
    said in a written statement. "There will be residual impacts to our
    operation throughout the evening."

    https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/alaska-airlines-ground-stop-flights-it-outage/281-0dc58c38-ba47-4006-a7c9-2e5f66e5b636

    ...does anyone know anything about their IT architecture? Wondering
    what went wrong?

    --
    -v

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  • From JAB@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jul 21 06:36:35 2025
    On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 05:55:15 -0000 (UTC), vallor <vallor@cultnix.org>
    wrote:

    ...does anyone know anything about their IT architecture? Wondering
    what went wrong?

    How Alaska Airlines uses technology to ensure its passengers have a
    seamless journey from ticket purchase to baggage pickup
    ...
    using technology like Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Defender and GitHub
    to help along the way.
    ...
    We look at it in terms of two main platforms: Our own datacenters to
    support part of our critical workloads and the Microsoft Azure Cloud
    platform to support the other part of the workload. We started about
    10 years ago with Azure and we've been strategically moving workloads
    from our datacenters to Azure. We invest in both platforms and make
    sure we have strong partners like Microsoft who can stand behind the
    technology platforms we pick.

    https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/digital-transformation/how-alaska-airlines-uses-technology-to-ensure-its-passengers-have-a-seamless-journey-from-ticket-purchase-to-baggage-pickup/

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  • From JAB@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jul 21 06:42:39 2025
    On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 05:55:15 -0000 (UTC), vallor <vallor@cultnix.org>
    wrote:

    ...does anyone know anything about their IT architecture? Wondering
    what went wrong?

    How COBOL Modernization Is Powering the Future of Aviation Systems

    Behind the scenes, many of the world's largest airlines, airport
    operators, and air traffic management systems still depend on COBOL

    https://codeaura.ai/how-cobol-modernization-is-powering-the-future-of-aviation-systems/

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  • From vallor@21:1/5 to JAB on Mon Jul 21 16:30:14 2025
    On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 06:36:35 -0500, JAB <here@is.invalid> wrote in <105l8o5$3ue16$1@dont-email.me>:

    On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 05:55:15 -0000 (UTC), vallor <vallor@cultnix.org>
    wrote:

    ...does anyone know anything about their IT architecture? Wondering
    what went wrong?

    How Alaska Airlines uses technology to ensure its passengers have a
    seamless journey from ticket purchase to baggage pickup ...
    using technology like Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Defender and GitHub to
    help along the way.
    ...
    We look at it in terms of two main platforms: Our own datacenters to
    support part of our critical workloads and the Microsoft Azure Cloud
    platform to support the other part of the workload. We started about 10
    years ago with Azure and we've been strategically moving workloads from
    our datacenters to Azure. We invest in both platforms and make sure we
    have strong partners like Microsoft who can stand behind the technology platforms we pick.

    https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/digital-transformation/how-
    alaska-airlines-uses-technology-to-ensure-its-passengers-have-a-seamless- journey-from-ticket-purchase-to-baggage-pickup/

    Thank you, that's a very handy link!

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    -v

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  • From JAB@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jul 21 11:45:11 2025
    On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 16:30:14 -0000 (UTC), vallor <vallor@cultnix.org>
    wrote:

    that's a very handy link!

    Since airlines used, and still are using COBOL, and Alaskan Airlines
    is "modernizing" their system...most likely, SNAFU, due to a coding
    issue.

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  • From JAB@21:1/5 to JAB on Mon Jul 21 20:15:20 2025
    On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 06:42:39 -0500, JAB <here@is.invalid> wrote:

    .does anyone know anything

    Redundancy should have been built in...they are using MS's Cloud, but apparently still have in-house hardware doing tasks.
    ===============

    But then a hardware failure in Alaska Airlines' computer network
    forced the airline to pause its flights for around three hours Sunday
    night.
    ...
    ...
    In a statement, Alaska Airlines pointed to an "unexpected failure" of
    a crucial piece of hardware at its data centers that led to the
    outage.

    "When that happened, it impacted several of our key systems that
    enable us to run various operations, necessitating the implementation
    of a ground stop to keep aircraft in position," the statement read.
    "The safety of our flights was never compromised."

    A ground stop means affected aircraft cannot take off.

    https://www.seattletimes.com/business/alaska-airlines-says-hardware-failure-led-to-it-outage-grounding-planes/

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  • From Michael Trew@21:1/5 to JAB on Tue Jul 22 11:50:56 2025
    On 7/21/2025 12:45 PM, JAB wrote:
    On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 16:30:14 -0000 (UTC), vallor <vallor@cultnix.org>
    wrote:

    that's a very handy link!

    Since airlines used, and still are using COBOL, and Alaskan Airlines
    is "modernizing" their system...most likely, SNAFU, due to a coding
    issue.

    I've read that many airlines use Windows 3.x era systems to keep
    everything going. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I don't know why
    they would choose to "upgrade" to something as unreliable as Microsoft
    cloud service.

    As long as you can find parts, those old DOS based systems will run
    forever, and won't be subject to cloud attacks and failures. I hear the
    US missile system is still run from 8" floppy disks. Nice and simple,
    NO way to hack in.

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  • From JAB@21:1/5 to michael.trew@att.net on Tue Jul 22 19:42:42 2025
    On Tue, 22 Jul 2025 11:50:56 -0400, Michael Trew
    <michael.trew@att.net> wrote:

    airlines use Windows 3.x

    "Aside from Windows 3.1, Southwest also uses Windows 95 for its staff scheduling system. It is a newer operating system -- about three years
    younger than Windows 3.1 -- but it's ancient compared to today's tech.
    Many of the airline's staff have been complaining about it already."

    https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/windows-31-saves-the-day-during-crowdstrike-outage

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