Submitted by Fox First at Ten on October 9th
SEATTLE (AP) - Alaska Airlines operations were slowly returning to normal Monday afternoon after a fiber-optic outage shut down its ticketing system for five hours, cancelling flights in Seattle and Los Angeles and causing delays across the airline's 64-airport network. The problems started shortly before 8 a.m. when computers the airline uses to check in passengers went down, forcing employees to board travelers manually - in some instances sticking handwritten flight numbers to computer monitors. The biggest delays were at Seattle's Sea-Tac Airport, where about half the flights are Alaska Airlines or its regional airline Horizon Air. Frustration grew along with the lines of passengers waiting to check in, though some travelers simply sat or lay down and waited. Lines stretched out the door in the Alaska Airlines part of the terminal.(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
