Alaska Airlines (ALK) passengers faced digital turbulence on Wednesday as the airline’s website and mobile app went down due to a global outage at Microsoft’s (MSFT) Azure cloud platform. The disruption left travelers unable to check in online, manage bookings, or access flight information. ALK stock declined about 3% on Wednesday.
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Early Wednesday morning, Alaska Airlines posted on X (formerly Twitter), confirming that “a disruption to key systems, including our websites,” was underway due to issues with Microsoft Azure. It said to be working to restore services as quickly as possible.
Microsoft acknowledged the Azure outage, citing a configuration issue with its global content network. The problem affected access to services such as Office 365, Xbox Live, and other cloud-based platforms. According to reports, other companies such as Starbucks (SBUX) and Costco (COST) were also impacted.
Alaska Airlines Faces Mounting Tech Troubles
This outage is the third major IT failure for Alaska Airlines in the past three months and the second in just the last week, raising concerns about the airline’s tech infrastructure.
The most recent failure, on October 24, was caused by an internal update error at Alaska Airlines’ primary data center, leading to an eight-hour ground stop that canceled over 400 flights and affected more than 49,000 passengers.
The back-to-back tech failures have prompted scrutiny of the airline’s reliance on third-party cloud services and its overall digital resilience.
Is ALK a Good Stock to Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, ALK stock has a Strong Buy consensus rating based on nine Buys assigned in the last three months. At $70.00, the average Alaska Airlines stock price target implies a 67.58% upside potential.
