Crowds are seen gathering at Suvarnabhumi Airport as a global IT disruption caused by a Microsoft outage and a Crowdstrike IT issue combine to impact users on July 19, 2024 in Bangkok, Thailand.
Mailee Osten-tan | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Several airlines suspended flights on Friday, while others warned of delays and service disruptions as an unprecedented IT outage affected global operations.
Early on Friday, the cybersecurity giant Mass coup experienced a major outage related to a technology upgrade. Organizations like Microsoft had to scramble to restore applications and services used by a large number of businesses.
Flight update and check-in monitors at airports around the world were displaying the so-called blue screen of death, indicating a Microsoft System error. Images shared on social media showed a board with flight updates at Belfast International Airport in Northern Ireland and a handwritten boarding pass for an IndiGo flight from India.
“It seems that for the first time we are facing a real global blackout… The outage affected not only individual users, but especially large institutions such as banks (including central banks), stock exchanges, airports, paralyzing operations during the peak holiday season and causing chaos in many other sectors,” Grzegorz Drozdz, market analyst at Conotoxia, said in emailed comments.
As of 12 p.m. ET Friday, nearly 30,000 flights had been delayed worldwide, with about 5,400 of those being within, to or from the United States, according to FlightAware data. More than 3,200 flights were canceled, with nearly 2,000 of those being U.S. flights.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on CNBC's “Squawk on the Street” on Friday that he expects transportation delays to be resolved and “back to normal” by Saturday.
“The problem has been identified. It's really a domino or cascading effect that will happen as things get back to normal on their networks,” Buttigieg said. “These flights are happening so close together, so closely together, that even after the root cause has been addressed, you can still feel those impacts throughout the day.”
A global IT outage will affect airports around the world on July 19, 2024.
Kevin Breuninger | CNBC
Airlines across Europe, the Middle East, the Americas and Asia issued updates outlining the suspected extent of the impact on their flight schedules and broader services, and advised passengers to check the status of their flights.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said at 10:22 a.m. ET: “The FAA continues to work closely with airlines as they attempt to resume normal operations. Ground stops and delays will be intermittent at several airports as airlines resolve residual technological issues.”
American Airlines The airline said it had been able to “safely restore our operation” by 5 a.m. ET. The airline also said: “We expect there will be impact to our flight schedule today, including delays and cancellations.”
Delta and United Both said they had resumed some flight departures but expected delays and cancellations through Friday. All three airlines 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.
“On the dashboard it says 8 a.m., but on my app it's 9 a.m., so who knows,” he said of the flight that was originally scheduled to leave at 6 a.m. “I'm tired. I want to sleep,” said Black, who woke up at 3 a.m. “But otherwise, yeah, it happens.”
Travelers wait at check-in counters at Berlin airport during an IT outage that has 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 its IT problems had been “almost completely resolved” and air traffic to and from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport could “fully resume” after most of KLM's operations were suspended in the morning.
However, the airline added that many flights had been delayed or cancelled and disruptions would continue overnight and into the weekend, with further cancellations possible.
KLM partner airline French Air said on Friday afternoon that its operations had returned to normal “across the network” after only some flights to Amsterdam and Berlin were affected during the day, but that delays could not be ruled out.
Germany Lufthansa German airline Eurowings, part of the same group, said it was only “slightly affected” by the global outage, with the biggest impact on routes to Berlin, Amsterdam and Zurich. German budget airline Eurowings, part of the same group, said it planned to operate around 80% of its flights, with most cancellations on domestic routes.
Earlier in the morning, Swiss air navigation service provider Skyguide said it had reduced Swiss transit traffic capacity by 30% as a precaution after it was affected by the disruption.
Busiest day for flights in the UK
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic said some flight disruptions were expected on Friday.
Aviation analytics firm Cirium said Friday 19 July would be the busiest day of the year for flights, with the highest number of daily scheduled departures (3,214) since October 2019.
As of 3 p.m. in London, 3,343 flights had been canceled worldwide, Cirium said.
London's Gatwick and Heathrow airports said they were still experiencing problems and delays were expected. Gatwick said the problems extended to “some airlines' check-in and security systems, including electronic boarding gates.”
Self-check-in systems temporarily stopped operating at numerous airports on Friday, including Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport, Singapore's Changi Airport and Hong Kong International Airport.
Mainland Chinese airlines such as Air China and China Southern were not affected because they use a different system, Reuters reported, citing state media.
— Kevin Breuninger, Leslie Josephs and Ece Yildirim of CNBC and NBC News Carlo Angerer Contributed reporting.
Correction: This story has been updated to correct a time reference.
