Passengers with Alaska Airlines faced major delays Friday.
An internet outage forced the carrier to cancel dozens of flights.
Warren and Shirl Nadeau checked in at Honolulu Airport for a 1:15 p.m. flight to Seattle and found out it’s been delayed more than nine hours. When they arrive in Seattle, there’s more waiting ahead of them because they need to take a ferry.
"When we land there will be no ferry boats running so then we’ll have to find a place to hang out or sleep or get a hotel or something," says Warren.
All things considered, they’re handling the situation well.
"Well, things happen, airplanes have difficulty just like any other business so it’s not a problem," Shirl says.
"Computers break, airplanes break, just gotta roll with the punches," Warren says.
Others aren’t taking it so lightly. Passengers flying to San Jose were delayed three hours, and that’s not sitting well with them.
"A big problem we have someone picking us up that was supposed to be there at 10:30 so now he’ll have to wait until 1:30 to get us and drive about an hour and a half home," said Sarah Villanueva, one of the passengers on the San Jose flight.
"Now we just have to wait here I don’t know if the plane is gonna change times now again, so it’s a pretty big problem," said Christina Pina, also on the San Jose flight.
Alaska Airlines, which is based in Seattle, says an internet outage occurred after a Sprint fiber network cable was severed in the Seattle area. That internet service is the one the airline uses for reservations so it was forced to cancel several flights. Many more flights were delayed. The airline says the problem is fixed and is trying to get the operations back to normal. As for passengers here in Honolulu, they’ll just have to make the best of it.
"It would have been nice to hang out at the beach a little bit longer but what can you do, these things happen," says Alexa Boubalos, who was delayed three hours.
"My trip was great, but I’m just a little annoyed I just maybe get a drink at the bar now or something," Pina says.
Alaska Airlines says passengers travelling Tuesday or Wednesday can change their ticket or request a refund without additional fees.
See the original article at: KHON2 Local News
