Flights grounded as widespread outages hit global travel, banking and media.
Major US airlines such as American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines implemented ground stops on Friday morning due to communication issues, shortly after Microsoft resolved a cloud services outage that had affected several low-cost airlines.
Reports indicate that a software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, known for its antivirus software, has gone awry, causing Windows devices to malfunction and display the infamous “blue screen of death.”
Low-cost carriers including Frontier Airlines, Allegiant, and SunCountry had reported operational disruptions earlier.
Late Thursday, Frontier announced it was resuming normal operations and had lifted its ground stop. Frontier attributed the temporary impact on its operations to a “major Microsoft technical outage,” while SunCountry indicated that a third-party vendor, without specifying the company, had affected its booking and check-in services.
US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg stated that the department was monitoring the cancellation and delay issues, and emphasized that the agency will ensure all airlines fulfil their responsibilities to passengers.
Allegiant mentioned in a statement to CNN that its website was unavailable due to the Microsoft Azure issue.
According to FlightAware, Frontier cancelled 147 flights and delayed 212 others on Thursday. Allegiant experienced delays with 45% of its flights, and Sun Country delayed 23% of its flights. Specific numbers of affected flights were not provided by the airlines.
Microsoft reported that its outage began around 6 pm ET on Thursday, impacting some customers using various Azure services in the Central US region. Azure is a cloud computing platform offering services for application development, deployment, and management. Additionally, Microsoft mentioned it was investigating an issue affecting several Microsoft 365 apps and services.
In a post on X, Microsoft said it was “investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services.”
“We still expect that users will continue to see gradual relief as we continue to mitigate the issue,” it added.
In Europe, users of Ryanair’s app and website also complained and not being able to check in on Friday morning.
Several European airports have experienced IT problems, with Berlin Brandenburg Airport informing passengers to anticipate delays at check-in. In the UK, Edinburgh Airport encountered a computer glitch that caused departure boards to freeze.
Additionally, Amsterdam Schiphol has reported flight disruptions, and airports in New Zealand, Japan, and India have also been affected.
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