Hawaiian + Alaska Hit By Second Tech/Website Outage This Week

A second major system failure has hit Alaska Airlines in less than a week, while Hawaiian Airlines is caught up in the same global Microsoft Azure outage for the first time. Both carriers’ websites and apps went down Wednesday morning, disrupting check-ins and reservations across their now-shared technology network.

What happened on Wednesday.

At 9:10 a.m. Pacific time, Alaska confirmed its systems were down, saying: “Our website and app are down, it is being looked into.” By midmorning, the airline linked the problem to a worldwide Azure outage. “Due to a global outage impacting the Microsoft Azure platform where several Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines services are hosted, we are currently experiencing a disruption to key systems, including our websites,” Alaska said.

Microsoft’s own dashboard showed multiple regions affected, with failures across login authentication and data storage. Its Azure Support team wrote that engineers were investigating “an issue impacting several Azure services.”

The impact on Hawaii travelers.

The result was immediate: online check-ins failed, mobile boarding passes vanished, and even some airport kiosks stopped printing passes. Alaska urged guests to see airport agents in person and to allow extra time. Travelers posted updates showing long lines building once again at Seattle, Portland, and Los Angeles, echoing last week’s chaos when Alaska’s separate IT problem grounded more than 400 flights. BOH editors witnessed that first-hand at LAX.

For Hawaiian passengers, the issue spread quickly. Because many of Hawaiian’s digital systems are now hosted under Alaska’s technology infrastructure, its website and app also became unstable. Visitors trying to manage bookings to and from the islands reported to us having the same error screens.

As of early afternoon, both airlines said they had not canceled flights directly because of the outage, but check-in delays were widespread.

What this means for Hawaii.

Since Alaska completed its purchase of Hawaiian earlier this year, both carriers have been migrating Hawaiian’s systems into the shared Azure cloud network. That transition, meant to streamline operations, has instead exposed a new vulnerability. When Azure goes down, both airlines simultaneously go dark.

For Hawaii travelers, that shared dependence is becoming increasingly noticeable. Guests trying to check flight status, make seat changes, or access interisland itineraries found themselves stuck. Some told us that even third-party booking confirmations were unavailable because of the same backend failure.

The outage underscores how the merger is reshaping reliability. Hawaiian’s once-independent systems were known for local control and typically quick fixes, other than their own massive upgrade failure years ago. Under Alaska’s umbrella, both carriers now depend on a single global cloud provider thousands of miles away from Hawaii.

Cloud fragility hits home in the islands.

This second failure in a single week is already drawing scrutiny. Last Thursday’s meltdown was tied to Alaska’s internal update error, not Microsoft, but together they raise concerns about resilience and backup systems. Alaska’s executives have repeatedly described the migration to cloud-based hosting as essential to efficiency and modernization. What passengers have seen instead are two breakdowns that halted normal operations in less than seven days.

Industry analysts say the problem is widespread. Delta, United, and American also rely on Microsoft or Amazon for backend data. When Azure or AWS stumbles, airlines can lose access to reservations, crew management, or check-in tools. “It’s efficient but not redundant,” one analyst told us. “The savings come at the cost of control.”

What to do if you are flying today.

If you are flying on Alaska or Hawaiian, arrive early, go manual and print boarding passes when possible, and keep confirmation numbers handy. Mobile passes may not load even if systems appear restored. Airport agents can still issue paper passes and confirm bookings manually.

As of mid-day, Microsoft said some Azure systems were recovering, though both airlines continued to display banners warning of limited functionality. Alaska’s shares fell nearly two percent in early trading.

The bigger picture.

For travelers, this is not just another outage. It is part of a pattern showing how modern airline operations depend on unseen technology partners that can suddenly fail. It also reinforces how closely linked Alaska and Hawaiian now are, both in brand and infrastructure.

For Hawaii, the timing is especially sensitive. The islands’ visitor traffic relies heavily on digital systems that enable check-in, baggage handling, and scheduling across the Pacific. When those systems break, the effect reaches far beyond Seattle or Portland—it reaches Maui, Honolulu, Kona, and Lihue.

Have you tried to check in or fly today on Alaska or Hawaiian? What was your experience?