Suspected cyberattack outage continues at Port of Seattle, causing chaos at SeaTac Airport

The Port of Seattle is still working to resolve a suspected cyberattack that began Saturday morning, with many travelers facing either missed flights or major delays.

KIRO 7 went to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Saturday night, speaking with international travelers dealing with significant delays due to the web and online systems outage.

Travelers Maria Camilon Price and her daughter Alexis waited hours in line to check in for their flight, saying, “They have to manually enter everybody’s information rather than the whole universal system. It’s frustrating and there have been people that have been here for over three hours now.”

The Prices knew about the outages beforehand, even planning ahead.

“We thought we came early enough, two and a half hours early, and we’re still here - so just making it through the crowd was a challenge because the entire lobby was full earlier,” said Alexis Price.

Meanwhile – some travelers didn’t know about the outages until they landed.

Travelers Lena Frank and Jan Lintz told KIRO 7 that they missed their connecting flight to Vancouver after sitting on the plane for two hours waiting for a gate. They thought their two-and-a-half-hour layover would be enough time to make the connection, but in the end, had to rebook their flight.

Rebooking was especially tough - with phone lines and Wi-Fi down across the airport.

“We were looking for so many spots to find like people to talk to that would be the airline or whatever and just found nobody. That hurts a bit because you feel like lost,” said Lintz.

The Port of Seattle website also remained down and inaccessible on Sunday, leaving travelers unable to access their flight status directly from the webpage.

Port of Seattle faced phone systems outages at their Maritime Facilities as well, sharing a list of phone numbers for people to call regarding any urgent matters.

At around 9:45 a.m. Sunday morning, the Seattle-Tacoma Airport shared this update:

System outages continue at the Port of Seattle, including at SEA airport. Port teams continue to make progress on returning systems to normal operations, but there is not an estimated time for return.

SeaTac urged travelers to give themselves extra time to get to the airport and their gate and check with their airlines for specific travel information. Travelers were also told to complete flight check-in online and get their boarding passes digitally before arriving at the airport, and stick to carry-on luggage if they can.

The airport added that terminal screens at the airport are experiencing technical difficulties as well, reiterating that travelers should check with their airline for the latest gate information.

SeaTac says they are working closely with the appropriate authorities and partners to help any travelers who may be impacted.

KIRO 7 will continue to update this story as more information on the outage and an estimated return time becomes available.

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