Topline
The Federal Aviation Administration lifted a pause on all Alaska Airlines departures nationwide on Wednesday after about an hour, a halt the major airline said was related to a problem with its system for calculating weight.
The FAA did not give a reason for the ground stop ordered Wednesday morning, but the airline said it ... [+]
Key Facts
The advisory, issued around 10:30 a.m. EDT, ordered “all Alaska mainline and subcarrier flights ground stopped,” though flights on Skywest—an Alaska Airlines partner—were allowed to continue.
The ground stop was canceled around 11:30 a.m. EDT and Alaska has begun releasing flights for departure, but “residual delays are expected throughout the day,” Alaska Airlines told Forbes in a statement.
Alaska Airlines said it requested the ground stop for all Alaska and Horizon flights after it “experienced an issue while performing an upgrade to the system that calculates our weight and balance.”
What We Don’t Know
How many flights were impacted by the hour-long ground stop. Alaska Airlines told Forbes it did not have an approximation for how many flights were affected. The airline did say on X, formerly known as Twitter, that flights were not being canceled but may be delayed.
Tangent
News of Alaska Airlines’ ground stop came around the same time testimony from a Boeing whistleblower began in Congress. The whistleblower is testifying about Boeing’s safety practices, which have been under scrutiny following an incident in January when a door plug of an Alaska flight on a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane blew out mid-flight. The incident led to investigations by the National Traffic Safety Board and FAA and is reportedly the subject of a Department of Justice criminal probe.
Further Reading
