Montana News

Cut fiber optic cable cancels Alaska Airlines Missoula flight

Posted: Oct 8, 2012 2:01 PM by Mark Thorsell - MTN News

SEATTLE - A system-wide outage caused Alaska Airline flight problems on Monday, including a cancellation in Missoula.

The Missoula International Airport website reports that the Alaska Air 12:53 p.m. flight was canceled; however as of mid-afternoon, the 6:52 p.m. and 11:54 p.m. flights are still scheduled to fly.

Alaska Airlines is experiencing a system wide software outage affecting check-in, flight operations and reservations.

The outage is affecting the airlines' ability to check-in passengers and depart flights, according to a statement on the Alaska Air website.

Sprint, Alaska Airlines' Internet provider, went down after a fiber network cable was cut in Wisconsin at 8:30 a.m. Monday. Sprint provides the airline with connectivity to SABRE, the system used for reservations, check-in and to purchase tickets.

The outage is preventing customers from checking in and has caused significant system-wide delays in all cities Alaska Airlines serves.

Alaska IT specialists are working to partially restore a connection to SABRE.