Crowds gather at Suvarnabhumi Airport as the global IT disruption caused by Microsoft’s disruption and Crowdstrike IT issues combine to affect users on July 19, 2024 in Bangkok, Thailand.
Mailee Osten-tan | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Some airlines suspended flights on Friday, while others warned of delays and service unavailability as the impact of the unprecedented IT disruption was felt globally.
Early Friday, cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike experienced a major outage related to a technology update. Organizations including Microsoft were left scrambling to restore applications and services used by many companies.
Flight updates and check-in monitors at airports around the world are displaying so-called “blue screens of death,” indicating a Microsoft system error. Belfast International Airport uses whiteboards for staff to manually write flight updates, Sky News’ Stephen Murphy reports.
“It seems that we are facing a real global outage for the first time … The disruption does not only affect individual users, but especially large institutions such as banks (including central banks), stock exchanges, airports, paralyzed operations during the peak holiday season and causes chaos in many other sectors,” said Grzegorz Drozdz, market analyst at Conotoxia, in emailed comments.
Global IT disruption affects airports around the world on July 19, 2024.
Kevin Breuninger CNBC
Airlines across Europe, the Middle East, the Americas and Asia have issued updates outlining the expected impact on flight schedules and wider services.
In the US, the Federal Aviation Administration said early Friday that some airlines have asked for help with ground stops for their fleet until the problem has been resolved.
American said that at 5 am ET was able to “secure our operation again.”
Shortly before 8 a.m. ET, Delta said it had resumed some flight departures but expected “additional delays and cancellations” on Friday.
United also said it was resuming some flights but expected “schedule disruptions to continue on Friday.” Delta and United have issued waivers to allow customers to change their travel plans.
Travelers wait at a check-in counter at Berlin Airport during an IT outage that disrupted airline services here and around the world on July 19, 2024 in Schoenefeld, Germany.
Sean Gallup Getty Images News | Getty Images
In Europe, Dutch airline KLM said on Friday morning it had been forced to suspend “most” operations due to the disruption, which it said was “unable to handle flights.” During the day, it said that “limited air traffic is now possible” and advised passengers to check the status of their flights online, and not to come to the airport “if the flight does not take off or is very late.”
Partner airline Air France said at 12:48 a.m. in the UK (5:46 a.m. ET) that its operations “remain close to normal,” with only certain flights to Amsterdam and Berlin affected, but could not rule out other disruptions.
Flights operated by Germany’s Lufthansa experienced minimal disruption to and from Berlin, a spokesman said. However, German low-cost airline Eurowings, part of the same group, said in an early afternoon update that it was canceling all domestic flights as well as to and from the UK due to departures before 3pm.
Swiss air navigation service provider Skyguide said it had reduced Swiss transit traffic capacity by 30% as a precautionary measure after being hit by the outage.
Busiest day for UK flights
British carriers British Airways and Virgin Atlantic both said there were flight disruptions on Friday.
According to flight analytics company Cirium, Friday July 19 is set to be the busiest day of the year, with the highest number of daily departures – 3,214 – since October 2019.
As of 11:45 a.m. in London, 1,396 flights had been canceled globally, a figure that could change within a day, Cirium said.
London Gatwick and Heathrow airports both said they were using backup systems to resume operations but said there were delays. Gatwick said the issue involved “some airlines’ check-in, baggage and security systems, including eGates.”
Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport and Singapore’s Changi Airport said the self-check-in system was not working and the check-in process was being managed manually. Singapore Airlines said the flight was now operating as scheduled.
Cathay Pacific says its self-check-in facility at Hong Kong International Airport has resumed after a technical glitch.
“Facial recognition at the bag drop facility at Hong Kong International Airport remains unavailable. Please allow additional time for document verification if you are traveling with checked baggage,” the airline said.
– Leslie Josephs and Carlo Anger contribute reports.
