Skift Viewpoint
Computer problems are not new for airlines and airports, but the scale of Friday’s outage was unprecedented, with Delta and United Airlines among the carriers badly affected.
Gordon Smith and Peden Doma Bhutia, Skift
Airlines around the world are struggling to recover from a catastrophic global IT outage. Companies in the US, UK, India and Australia have been severely affected.
Earlier on Friday, Delta Air Lines “paused” all flights across its global network as it “resolves a supplier technical issue.” United Airlines is one of the other major airlines to suspend all flights, with the issue “affecting [its] Passengers can access the booking tool to rebook. The airline has now restarted some services.
Elsewhere, Canada Porter Airlines cancel all flights before 12:00 noon EST, and Eurowings cancelled All domestic services in Germany and the UK close at 3pm (CET).
As of 12:00 pm ET (4:00 pm GMT), aviation analytics firm Cirium said 4,295 flights were canceled worldwide on Friday, with thousands more delayed. That number is expected to rise throughout the day.
KLM Say on X On Friday morning, the Dutch national airline said the cyber attack had caused “flights to become unmanageable” and had “largely suspended operations”.
What is the cause of the power outage?
The source of the problem appears to be a software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The company’s CEO, George Kurtz, said the company Say on X “A defect was discovered in a single content update for Windows hosts” caused trouble for customers.
Kurtz added that the issue had been “identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed.” He said the outage was not caused by a security incident or cyberattack.
Even if the technical issues are resolved, the knock-on effects for affected airlines and airports are likely to continue throughout the day and could get worse before getting better.
Microsoft said earlier this month that it was taking “mitigation steps” after the service issues occurred, according to AFP. Heathrow Airport was one of the high-profile organizations to mention Microsoft. In its statement Microsoft said the outage began at 6 pm ET (10 pm GMT) Thursday.
What do the major airports say?
Aircraft tracking service Flightradar24 reported significant delays to and from airports around the world on Friday. International hubs such as Heathrow, Las Vegas and Sydney were experiencing significant problems.
Denver Airport confirmed that “multiple airlines were impacted” and said some parking lots were closed due to “ticketing issues.”
Spanish airport operator Aena says All airports are now operational but warned that many airlines are rescheduling flights for the rest of Friday.
Scotland’s Edinburgh Airport is among the airports asking passengers travelling today not to enter the terminal without first checking with their airline.
Meanwhile, Ryanair advised all passengers to arrive at the airport at least three hours before their flight due to “disruptions across our network”.
Airlines and Airports No stranger to IT issuesOnline travel businesses are also vulnerable to outages, with Expedia Group experiencing a global outage in May. A recent striking exampleHowever, the depth and scale of the current difficulties affecting the aviation industry on Friday are unprecedented.
Indian flights hit by IT outage
All Indian airlines reported suspensions, including Air India, Vistara, IndiGo, Akasa, Air India Express and SpiceJet.
Airlines including IndiGo, SpiceJet and Akasa reported technical glitches in services such as booking tickets and online check-in from 10:45 am local time on Friday.
Air India Group has asked passengers to plan their journeys properly and allow ample time for airport formalities.
Akasa Airlines said on Friday that its online services such as reservations, check-in and managed bookings are temporarily unavailable. The company is handling manual check-in and boarding processes at the airport and asked passengers with immediate travel plans to arrive at the airport as early as possible.
Adani Airports, which operates airports in major cities across India, said: “The global IT outage has impacted operations, affecting flights across the country. Bookings, check-ins, boarding pass acquisition and flights may be affected during this period…”
Asia Pacific Overview
Singapore’s Changi Airport said some airlines had switched to manual check-in. Ground staff were assisting passengers, “especially those departing soon,” the airport said.
Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific announced that self-service check-in facilities at Hong Kong International Airport were temporarily unavailable. Sydney Airport said flight departures and arrivals were continuing but significant delays were expected, adding: “We have activated our contingency plans and deployed additional staff to the terminal.”
However, the confusion for passengers was not widespread. A Dubai Airports spokesperson issued a statement to Skift confirming that the hub was “operating normally” following a morning check-in disruption for some airlines at Terminals 1 and 2.
“The affected airlines quickly switched to backup systems, which allowed them to quickly resume normal check-in operations,” the spokesperson said.
The airline industry wasn’t the only one experiencing technical problems on Friday. Banks, hospitals and other organizations around the world reported power outages and other IT glitches.
Year-to-date performance of the aviation sector stock index
What am I looking at? Performance of airline stocks ST200The index includes companies that are publicly traded in global markets, including network operators, low-cost carriers, and other related companies.
Skift Travel 200 (ST200) The financial results of nearly 200 travel companies (valued at over a trillion dollars) were consolidated into one number. View more airline industry financial performance.
