Flights to and from Alaska were among those affected by a recent international computer system breakdown.
Alaska Airlines reports about 50 planes were delayed Monday night, including 10 out of Anchorage and one from Ketchikan. United, American and Delta were among other affected airlines serving the state.
Delays were caused by a breakdown in the SABRE computer reservation system used by more than 300 airlines worldwide.
Alaska Airlines’ Bobbie Egan says the outage lasted a little more than two hours.
“Our employees had to manually check in passengers like we did back in the good old days,” she said.
Egan said no flights were cancelled. She said extra award-program miles were not offered to passengers, as is sometimes the case. That’s because because delays were short and the flights continued.
“If we had any passengers who were significantly inconvenienced we certainly want to hear from them and they can call our customer care department and we’ll deal with each customer on a case-by-case basis,” she said.
The delays began around 7:45 p.m. Monday, Alaska time.
Flights in the air were not affected.
Ed Schoenfeld is Regional News Director for CoastAlaska, a consortium of public radio stations in Ketchikan, Juneau, Sitka, Petersburg and Wrangell.
He primarily covers Southeast Alaska regional topics, including the state ferry system, transboundary mining, the Tongass National Forest and Native corporations and issues.
He has also worked as a manager, editor and reporter for the Juneau Empire newspaper and Juneau public radio station KTOO. He’s also reported for commercial station KINY in Juneau and public stations KPFA in Berkley, WYSO in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and WUHY in Philadelphia. He’s lived in Alaska since 1979 and is a contributor to Alaska Public Radio Network newscasts, the Northwest (Public Radio) News Network and National Native News. He is a board member of the Alaska Press Club. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, he lives in Douglas.
