Flights grounded and passengers warned of delays amid global IT outage

Several airlines halted flights on Friday, while others warned of delays and services being unavailable as the impact of an unprecedented IT outage was felt globally.

Early on Friday, cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike experienced a major disruption linked to a tech update. Organizations including Microsoft were left scrambling to restore apps and services used by a huge number of firms.

Flight update and check-in monitors at airports around the world displayed the so-called “blue screen of death,” indicating a Microsoft system error. Images shared to social media showed a whiteboard displaying flight updates at Belfast International Airport, and a handwritten boarding pass for a flight with India’s IndiGo.

“It seems that for the first time we are facing a real global blackout… The disruption affected not only individual users, but especially large institutions such as banks (including central banks), stock exchanges, airports, paralysing operations during the peak holiday season and causing chaos in many other sectors,” Grzegorz Drozdz, market analyst at Conotoxia, said in emailed comments.

Airlines across Europe, the Middle East, the Americas and Asia issued updates outlining the suspected extent of impact on their flight schedules and wider services, with passengers advised to check their flight status.

In the U.S., the Federal Aviation Administration said early Friday that several airlines had requested assistance with ground stops for their fleets until issues were resolved.

American said that as of 5 a.m. ET it had been able to “safely re-establish our operation.”

Shortly before 8 a.m. ET, Delta said it had resumed some flight departures but expected “additional delays and cancelations” Friday.

United also said it was resuming some flights but expected “schedule disruptions to continue throughout Friday.” Both Delta and United 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.

“It says 8 a.m. on the board, but 9 a.m. on my app, so who knows,” he said of the flight that was originally set to depart at 6 a.m. “I’m just tired. I want to sleep,” said Black, who woke up at 3 a.m. “But otherwise, yeah, it happens.”

In Europe, Dutch airline KLM said Friday morning it had been forced to suspend “most” of its operations due to the outage, which it said had made it “impossible to handle flights.” At midday, it said “limited air traffic is currently possible” and advised passengers to check their flight status online, and to not come to the airport “if their flight is not departing or is seriously delayed.”

Its partner carrier Air France said at 12:48 p.m. U.K. time (5:46 a.m. ET) that its operations “remain close to normal,” with only certain flights to Amsterdam and Berlin affected, but that it could not rule out further disruption.

Flights operated by Germany’s Lufthansa faced minimal disruption to and from Berlin, a spokesperson said. However, low-cost German airline Eurowings, part of the same group, said in an early afternoon update it was canceling all domestic flights as well as those to and from the U.K. due to depart before 3 p.m.

Swiss air navigation service provider Skyguide said it had reduced the capacity of Swiss transit traffic by 30% as a precautionary measure after it was affected by the disruption.