Crowds are seen building up at Suvarnabhumi Airport as a global IT disruption caused by a Microsoft outage and a Crowdstrike IT problem combine to affect users on July 19, 2024 in Bangkok, Thailand.
Mailee Osten-tan | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Several airlines halted flights on Friday, while others warned of delays and services being unavailable as the impact of an unprecedented IT outage was felt globally.
Early on Friday, cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike experienced a major disruption linked to a tech update. Organizations including Microsoft were left scrambling to restore apps and services used by a huge number of firms.
Flight update and check-in monitors at airports around the world displayed the so-called “blue screen of death,” indicating a Microsoft system error. Images shared to social media showed a whiteboard displaying flight updates at Belfast International Airport, and a handwritten boarding pass for a flight with India’s IndiGo.
“It seems that for the first time we are facing a real global blackout… The disruption affected not only individual users, but especially large institutions such as banks (including central banks), stock exchanges, airports, paralysing operations during the peak holiday season and causing chaos in many other sectors,” Grzegorz Drozdz, market analyst at Conotoxia, said in emailed comments.
A global IT outage is affecting airports across the globe on July 19th, 2024.
Kevin Breuninger | CNBC
Airlines across Europe, the Middle East, the Americas and Asia issued updates outlining the suspected extent of impact on their flight schedules and wider services, with passengers advised to check their flight status.
In the U.S., the Federal Aviation Administration said early Friday that several airlines had requested assistance with ground stops for their fleets until issues were resolved.
American said that as of 5 a.m. ET it had been able to “safely re-establish our operation.”
Shortly before 8 a.m. ET, Delta said it had resumed some flight departures but expected “additional delays and cancelations” Friday.
United also said it was resuming some flights but expected “schedule disruptions to continue throughout Friday.” Both Delta and United issued waivers to allow customers to change their travel plans.
Colby Black, 45, took the delays in stride, even though he wasn’t sure when his rescheduled flight to Los Angeles would take off.
“It says 8 a.m. on the board, but 9 a.m. on my app, so who knows,” he said of the flight that was originally set to depart at 6 a.m. “I’m just tired. I want to sleep,” said Black, who woke up at 3 a.m. “But otherwise, yeah, it happens.”
Travellers wait at check-in counters at Berlin Airport during an IT outage that has disrupted airline services here and worldwide on July 19, 2024 in Schoenefeld, Germany.
Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images
In Europe, Dutch airline KLM said Friday morning it had been forced to suspend “most” of its operations due to the outage,