Operations are gradually being restored by airlines, airports and travel technology providers hit by a global IT outage that has also affected other industries like government agencies, hospitals and banking, but delays and disruptions are expected to continue.
As of Saturday morning, FlightAware showed more than 1,500 canceled flights globally, the majority for Delta and United but with dozens of other airlines around the world impacted. On Friday, more than 5,000 flights were cancelled and more than 11,000 delayed.
In Europe the outage impacted Air France, Ryanair, Iberia and others, while many airports around the world have said select systems are affected and they are making contingency plans.
Cybersecurity specialist Crowdstrike said the outage was triggered by a software update its systems deployed for Microsoft Windows late Thursday. The company now says it has found the issue is fixing it.
Crowdstrike's CEO, George Kurtz, said on X: "Crowdstrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts." He added that the issue was not a cyberattack and that it has "been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.
Francesc Puig, who left Travelport in June after 23 years
with the company – the last decade as vice president of engineering - told
PhocusWire, “What is happening with the failed update
from CrowdStrike is very serious and will have consequences for the industry.
This is a global incident that will cause millions, if not billions, in losses
to many.
“Only Crowdstrike knows why this happened, but from a
distance, it seems like a poor production deployment process. The problem is
truly serious because the temporary solution recommended by the company
requires qualified technical personnel to implement it on each and every
affected computer. … This also shows the immense dependency we all have on a
small number of companies that dominate the tech space.”
Meanwhile, airlines and airports issued their own statements informing passengers of the issue and the knock-on impact.
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Friday Dutch carrier KLM said the computer outage was "making it impossible to handle flights," adding "For now, we are forced to suspend most of the operation."
In a statement on its website Delta said that all flights are "paused" while it works through the issue with a technology vendor. Meanwhile, in a statement provided to BBC, United Airlines said: "A third party software outage is impacting computer systems worldwide, including at United. It added that it was "holding all aircraft" at departure airports while the issue is being resolved. "
Distribution giant Amadeus, which has a long-standing partnership with Microsoft, said: "Various media outlets this morning have reported an issue with CrowdStrike (the American cyber security technology company) which is affecting many organizations. At Amadeus we have detected issues with some of our services and we are working to do what we can as the highest priority."
Many airports also reported issues with Berlin Brandenburg Airport saying there would be delays in check in "due to a technical fault."
Meanwhile, London's Heathrow Airport, which is experiencing its busiest time of year, said on X: "Microsoft is currently experiencing a global outage which is impacting select systems at Heathrow. Flights are operational and we are implementing contingency plans to minimize any impact on journeys."
Sveinn Akerlie, CEO of airline disruption specialist Plan3, said: "Due to the complexity of the airline industry and its susceptibility to weather systems and technological outages, disruptions will continue to happen. However, what is surprising is the lack of corrective measures in place to deal with the passengers when they do."
Earlier this year, a report from Amadeus revealed that airlines are experiencing more disruptions than prior to the pandemic with executives expecting the issue to continue.