A massive global technology outage has disrupted air travel at Los Angeles International Airport and other California airports, one of many impacts facing the world on Friday.
“We urge passengers to check the status of their flight with their airline before heading to the airport,” he said. LAX Airport Account in Xformerly known as Twitter, posted Friday morning.
San Francisco International Airport also reported numerous flight delays.
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said the issue believed to have caused the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack, and that a fix was being worked on. The company said the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update on computers running Microsoft Windows.
The company's president and CEO, George Kurtz, posted a message on X on Friday morning saying the problem was not a cyberattack and had been fixed.
But in the meantime, the flaw spread to all technology around the world.
There were reports that some airports were beginning to restart service, but it was unclear when things would return to normal.
Shortly before 6 a.m., a Delta representative came over the intercom at LAX to inform passengers that the airport was still allowing planes to land, but that all flights were suspended for the time being. He advised travelers from Los Angeles to “go home” and check the company’s app or website for updates.
He added that the company's system was completely shut down and said the resulting halt in flight operations was “worse than 9/11.”
About a half hour later, another representative at the same gate (a flight bound for Minneapolis) announced that they were beginning the pre-boarding process. Applause erupted.
Passengers reported waiting up to two hours to get through security into Terminal 2 as many people whose flights were cancelled were told to retrieve their luggage before trying to rebook their flight.
Outside there were dozens of planes on the runway with nowhere to go.
Dozens of Delta flights were cancelled last night, and each announcement elicited a collective groan from the crowd. Some passengers had had to wait for several hours to get on the plane.
At 6 a.m. Friday, Delta, American and United airlines sent messages to X saying some flights had been delayed and travel waivers were being issued so customers could change flights. Each airline said Friday morning that their services had been restored, and data from flight-tracking website FlightAware reported 41 airport cancellations in the past 24 hours.
The impact went beyond aviation.
KGO-TV, the ABC station in San Francisco, said that “due to software issues affecting ABC stations and other companies around the world, we were unable to air our 11 p.m. newscast as scheduled.”
Britain's National Health Service said the blackout caused disruption to most doctors' surgeries across England. Some hospitals in northern Germany cancelled all scheduled surgeries for Friday, but emergency care was not affected.
In South Africa, at least one major bank said it was experiencing nationwide service disruptions as customers reported being unable to make payments with their bank cards in stores. New Zealand banks ASB and Kiwibank said their services were also disrupted.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
