An Alaska Airlines airplane taxis on a runway at the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport during the government shutdown, in Minneapolis, U.S., October 29, 2025. REUTERS/Tim Evans

(Reuters) -Alaska Air Group said on Friday it is partnering with Accenture to conduct an audit of its IT systems, after an outage earlier this week grounded its flights across the U.S.

The disruption stemmed from a global outage affecting Microsoft's Azure platform, which has impacted Alaska Air's key systems, including its websites.

The outage had forced the airline to cancel more than 400 flights, which halted travel for more than 49,000 passengers.

Alaska Air will update its forecast for the fourth quarter in early December, "once the full financial impact of the recent IT disruptions is understood," it said in a regulatory filing.

Last week, the carrier lowered its annual profit forecast and missed Wall Street expectations for third-quarter adjusted profit on higher fuel costs.

The company did not host or reschedule its third-quarter earnings call.

(Reporting by Anshuman Tripathy in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)