WASHINGTON: Air passengers around the world faced delays, cancellations and problems checking in as airports and airlines were caught up in a massive IT outage that also affected industries ranging from banks to media companies.
The travel industry was among the hardest hit with airports around the world, including Tokyo, Amsterdam, Berlin and several Spanish airports reporting problems with their systems and delays.
International airlines, including Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers, warned of problems with their booking systems and other disruptions.
According to an alert sent by Crowdstrike to its clients and reviewed by Reuters, the company’s “Falcon Sensor” software is causing Microsoft Windows to crash and display a blue screen, known informally as the “Blue Screen of Death”.
The alert, which was sent at 0530 GMT on Friday, also shared a manual workaround to rectify the issue.
A Crowdstrike spokesperson did not respond to emails or calls requesting comment.
There was no information to suggest the outage was a cyber security incident, the office of Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator Michelle McGuinness said in a post on X.
The outages rippled far and wide, wreaking havoc on global computer systems. Microsoft users worldwide, including banks and airlines, reported widespread outages, hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.
The cause, exact nature and scale of the outage was unclear. Microsoft appeared to suggest in its X posts that the situation was improving but escalating outages were still being reported around the world hours later.
The UAE’s Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority issued a statement, warning Crowdstrike users of a “technical issue” with the “software update.”
“We advise users of the program to hold off on any updates or downloads of CrowdStrike software until the issue is resolved.”
Important and Urgent Notice from TDRA to #CrowdStrike Software Users pic.twitter.com/stsrabV84S— تدرا TDRA (@tdrauae) July 19, 2024
Major US air carriers including Delta, United and American Airlines grounded all flights early on Friday over a communication issue, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
“All… flights regardless of destination” were grounded due to the “communication issues,” the FAA said in a notice to airlines.
However, The global outage is not being treated as a malicious act, a UK government security source said.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said security experts were not treating it as a cyber-related security issue.
The UK’s largest rail franchise is facing “widespread IT issues”, its four train lines said, warning of possible cancellations.
“We are currently experiencing widespread IT issues across our entire network”, the four lines operated by Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) posted on X.
Other transport systems across the UK faced similar IT issues, with Ryanair experiencing disruption due to “a global third party IT outage”.
British airports including London Luton and Edinburgh warned of longer waiting times for passengers because of the glitch, while Sky News television was temporarily off air.
Passengers at Britain’s Edinburgh Airport were unable to use automated boarding pass scanners, and monitors at security displayed a message saying “server offline”, a Reuters witness reported.
Edinburgh Airport was checking boarding passes manually, the witness said.
A health booking system used by doctors in England was also offline, medical officials said on X on Friday.
Similarly, passengers at Dusseldorf airport are facing disruptions to Eurowings’ check-in and boarding processes due to the malfunction.
Hong Kong Airport Authority said airlines affected by a Microsoft outage have switched to manual check-in and flight operations have not been affected.
Three Indian airlines announced disruptions to their booking systems on Friday, matching widespread technical problems reported by flight operators around the world.
“Our systems are currently impacted by a Microsoft outage,” budget carrier IndiGo said in a post on social media platform X, with airlines Akasa Air and SpiceJet also reporting technical issues.
Air France says it also suffered IT disruption, but not at Paris airports.
Spanish airport operator Aena on Friday also reported a computer systems “incident” at all Spanish airports which may cause flight delays.
“We are working to solve it as soon as possible. Meanwhile, operations are continuing with manual systems,” the airport operator said in a post on X platform.
In Berlin, airport authorities have halted all flights until 10 a.m. (0800 GMT) due to a technical fault, a spokesperson said.
Earlier on Friday, airport operator BER said in a post on social media platform X that check-ins were delayed due to the error.
The spokesperson did not give details about the nature of the problem, which comes amid reports of technical outages affecting some companies around the globe.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, one of Europe’s busiest hubs, is being affected by a global cyber outage, a spokesperson said .
“The outage has an impact on flights flying from and to Schiphol,” he said, adding that it was not yet clear how many flights were affected.
A large-scale outage wrought havoc on IT systems across Australia on Friday, with the country’s national broadcaster, its largest international airport, and a major telecommunications company reporting issues.
Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator said the “large-scale technical outage” was caused by an issue with a “third-party software platform.”
National broadcaster ABC said its systems had been crippled by a “major” glitch.
Photos posted online showed large queues forming at Sydney Airport, which said some airline operations and terminal services had been affected.
Some self-checkout terminals at one of the country’s largest supermarket chains displayed error messages.
Telecommunications firm Telstra also said some of its systems had been disrupted.
Major companies report outage
The website DownDectector, which tracks user-reported Internet outages, recorded growing outages in services at Visa, ADT security and Amazon, and airlines including American Airlines and Delta.
Microsoft 365 posted on X that the company was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact in a more expedient fashion” and that they were “observing a positive trend in service availability.”
The company did not respond to a request for comment. It did not explain the cause of the outage further.
Australian outages reported on the site included the banks NAB, Commonwealth and Bendigo, and the airlines Virgin Australia and Qantas, as well as Internet and phone providers such as Telstra.
News outlets in Australia — including the ABC and Sky News — were unable to broadcast on their TV and radio channels, and reported sudden shutdowns of Windows-based computers.
An X user posted a screenshot of an alert from the company Crowdstrike that said the company was aware of “reports of crashes on Windows hosts” related to its Falcon Sensor platform. The alert was posted on a password-protected Crowdstrike site and could not be verified. Crowdstrike did not respond to a request for comment.
