Transport providers, businesses and governments on Saturday are rushing to get all their systems back online after long disruptions following a widespread technology outage.
The biggest continuing effect has been on air travel. Carriers canceled thousands of flights on Friday and now have many of their planes and crews in the wrong place, while airports facing continued problems with checking in and security.
At the heart of the massive disruption is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that provides software to scores of companies worldwide. The company says the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows, noting that the issue behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.
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Britain's transport system still trying to get back on track
LONDON — Britain’s travel and transport industries are struggling to get back on schedule after the global security outage with airline passengers facing cancellations and delays on the first day of summer holidays for many school pupils.
Gatwick Airport said “a majority” of scheduled flights were expected to take off. Manchester Airport said passengers were being checked in manually and there could be last-minute cancellations.
The Port of Dover said it was seeing an influx of displaced air passengers, with hourlong waits to enter the port to catch ferries to France.
Meanwhile, Britain’s National Cyber Security Center warned people and businesses to be on the lookout for phishing attempts as “opportunistic malicious actors” try to take advantage of the outage.
The National Cyber Security Center’s former head, Ciaran Martin, said the worst of the crisis was over, “because the nature of the crisis is that it went very wrong very quickly. It was spotted quite quickly and essentially it was turned off.”
He told Sky News that some businesses would be able to get back to normal very quickly, but for sectors such as aviation it would take longer.
“If you’re in aviation, you’ve got people, planes and staffs all stranded in the wrong place… So we are looking at days. I’d be surprised if we’re looking at weeks.”
Germany airline expects most of its flights to run normally
BERLIN — Eurowings, a budget subsidiary of Lufthansa, said it expected to return to “largely scheduled” flight operations on Saturday.
On Friday, the global IT outage had forced the airline to cancel about 20% of its flights, mostly on domestic routes. Passengers were asked to take trains instead.
“Online check-in, check-in at the airport, boarding processes, booking and rebooking flights are all possible again,” the airline said Saturday on X. “However, due to the considerable extent of the global IT disruption there may still be isolated disruptions” for passengers, it said.
Delta Air Lines and its regional affiliates have canceled hundreds of flights
DALLAS — Delta Air Lines and its regional affiliates canceled more than a quarter of their schedule on the East Coast by midafternoon Friday, aviation data provider Cirium said.
More than 1,100 flights for Delta and its affiliates have been canceled.
United and United Express had canceled more than 500 flights, or 12% of their schedule, and American Airlines’ network had canceled 450 flights, 7.5% of its schedule.
Southwest and Alaska do not use the CrowdStrike software that led to the global internet outages and had canceled fewer than a half-dozen flights each.
Portland, Oregon, mayor declares an emergency over the outage
PORTLAND, Ore. — Mayor Ted Wheeler declared an emergency Friday after more than half of the city’s computer systems were affected by the global internet outage.
Wheeler said during a news conference that while emergency services calls weren’t interrupted, dispatchers were having to manually track 911 calls with pen and paper for a few hours. He said 266 of the city’s 487 computer systems were affected.
Border crossings into the US are delayed
SAN DIEGO — People seeking to enter the U.S. from both the north and the south found that the border crossings were delayed by the internet outage.
The San Ysidro Port of Entry was gridlocked Friday morning with pedestrians waiting three hours to cross, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Even cars with people approved for a U.S. Customers and Border Protection “Trusted Traveler” program for low-risk passengers waited up to 90 minutes. The program, known as SENTRI, moves passengers more quickly through customs and passport control if they make an appointment for an interview and submit to a background check to travel through customs and passport control more quickly when they arrive in the U.S.
Meanwhile, at the U.S.-Canada border, Windsor Police reported long delays at the crossings at the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor tunnel.
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NEW YORK (AP)—A major internet outage affecting Microsoft is disrupting flights, banks, media outlets and companies across the world. Problems are continuing hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services. Airlines in the United States, Europe, Australia and India were reporting problems with some flights grounded. Retail outlets, banks, railway companies and hospitals in several parts of the world were also affected in what appeared to be an unprecedented internet disruption. Border crossings into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada were delayed.
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Border crossings into the US are delayed
SANTA ANA, Calif. — People seeking to enter the U.S. from both the north and the south found that the border crossings were delayed by the internet outage.
The San Ysidro Port of Entry was gridlocked Friday morning with pedestrians waiting three hours to cross, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Even cars with people approved for a U.S. Customers and Border Protection “Trusted Traveler” program for low-risk passengers waited up to 90 minutes. The program, known as SENTRI, moves passengers more quickly through customs and passport control if they make an appointment for an interview and submit to a background check to travel through customs and passport control more quickly when they arrive in the U.S.
The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System posted on X that some of its employees who live in Tijuana, Mexico, were unable to get to work Friday. The agency said the disruption may affect its service and encouraged riders to check for delays or detours.
Meanwhile, at the U.S.-Canada border, Windsor Police reported long delays at the crossings at the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor tunnel.
Air travel has been disrupted around the globe
BERLIN — Airlines across the world reported disruptions to check-in systems and other issues that caused flights to be grounded or delayed.
German-based airline Eurowings, a budget subsidiary of Lufthansa, called on customers who were traveling inside Germany to book train tickets instead and submit them for reimbursement after it canceled German domestic flights and services to and from the United Kingdom.
At least 100 flights to and from Switzerland’s Zurich Airport were canceled Friday. Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport also saw flights canceled after being hit with the outage. Issues were also reported in the busy European hubs of Amsterdam and Rome.
France’s airport authority reported that some flights were temporarily suspended and there were check-in delays at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports.
Thailand’s two largest airports reported being forced to check in passengers manually.
In South Korea, several low-cost airlines reported problems, triggering delays in passenger boardings at Incheon international Airport, the country’s biggest airport, airport officials said.
In Canada, Porter Airlines said it was canceling its flights for several hours because of the outage. Azul Airlines, a Brazilian low-cost airline, said its check-in systems were affected, causing occasional flight delays.
Some U.S. air passengers were stranded or waited for hours to board
MINNEAPOLIS — Passengers across the U.S. found themselves facing a miserable experience Friday at some of the nation’s airports.
The FAA said the airlines United, American, Delta and Allegiant had all been grounded.
At the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, Sarah Schafer was headed to Florida for her cousin’s 50th birthday party, an event that had been scheduled around her availability.
She had been waiting for almost three hours Friday with no indication of when and where her flight would be rebooked. With lines stretched back the entire of length of her terminal, she stood in line with an injured ankle and used a cane to prop herself up.
“I seem calm,” Schafer said. “But my angry side might come out.”
More than 70 flights were canceled by 7 a.m. at Los Angeles International Airport and passengers were stuck in hours-long waits to get through security or to try to rebook their flights, the Los Angeles Times reported.
At Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, many information screens, including those at boarding gates, continued to be stuck on the blue Windows “recovery” screen on Friday afternoon.
Outages affect hospitals, doctor’s offices in US, Canada, England
Health care providers across the U.S. and in Canada and England had their services disrupted by the global internet outage, though some systems saw little or no effect.
Harris Health System, which runs public hospitals and clinics in the Houston area, said it had to suspend hospital visits “until further notice” due to the outage. Elective hospital procedures were being canceled and rescheduled.
The outage affected records systems for Providence, a health system with 51 hospitals in Alaska, California, Montana, Oregon and Washington state.
The New York-based Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center said it was pausing the start of any procedures that require anesthesia.
In New England, the outage led some hospitals to cancel appointments.
A spokesperson at Mass General Brigham, the largest health care system in Massachusetts, said the outage had resulted in all scheduled nonurgent surgeries, procedures and medical visits being canceled for Friday. Emergency departments remained open.
The 188-hospital HCA Healthcare system said it didn’t expect its ability to provide care to be affected, and in Los Angeles, the Cedars-Sinai Health System remained open and continued to provide care. The Cleveland Clinic also said patient care was not affected.
In Canada, University Health Network, one of that nation’s largest hospital networks, said clinical activity was continuing as scheduled, but some patients may experience delays.
Across the Atlantic, Britain’s National Health Service said there were problems at most doctors’ offices across England as the outage hit the appointment and patient record system used across the health service. The state-funded NHS treats the vast majority of people in the U.K.
The NHS said the 999 number used to call for emergency ambulances wasn’t affected.
If you want a Starbucks coffee, you can’t order ahead
People pining for a venti caramel macchiato or a grande frozen mango dragonfruit lemonade found Friday that they couldn’t order ahead from Starbucks online or with their cellphones Friday.
The coffee shop chain apologized for the problem and said it was serving customers in “a vast majority” of its stores and drive-thrus.
Courts in several U.S. states are disrupted by the outage
BOSTON — Courts in Massachusetts and New York saw their operations disrupted Friday by the global internet outage.
A spokesperson for the Massachusetts judiciary said about half of its workstations were down while court transcription recording systems were not operating in a number of courthouses, resulting in delays in some court sessions.
Some court proceedings were also delayed in New York because of computer problems.
In Manhattan, a criminal court proceeding for Harvey Weinstein, who is charged with rape, started 90 minutes late because of disruptions to court and corrections computer systems.
In Southern California, Orange County Superior Court also reported technical issues.
Outage forces several US states to close driver’s license offices
AUSTIN, Texas — The internet outages forced Texas to close all of its driver’s license offices across the state, and New York’s Department of Motor Vehicles couldn’t process transactions online and in its offices Friday morning.
The Texas Department of Public Safety operates driver’s license offices in most of the state’s 254 counties. The agency issues, renews and updates driver licenses or state ID cards and provides driver education courses.
The department said in a statement that “there is no current estimate” on when the offices will reopen.
In New York, the DMV said that by Friday afternoon, some systems had been restored and that it could begin performing online transactions. However, some in-person services were still offline.
At least three of its DMV offices closed for the day because of the outage, according to the agency’s website.
Zackary Blaine, a 28-year-old living in the New York City suburbs, said he took Friday off work expecting to spend a chunk of the day at the DMV only to find security guards turning people away at the door of his local office.
“I’m not too stressed, but it’s kind of wild to think how much something like this impacts things,” Blaine said by phone later.
Internet Society leader says outages ‘will happen in the future’
SAN FRANCISCO — The head of a nonprofit group that promotes building the internet says outages like the major one affecting Microsoft and causing problems across the globe will happen in the future because of “our world of complex, interconnected systems.”
“The important part is how we learn from them and how we improve the resilience of our systems, so that similar issues do not happen again,” Andrew Sullivan, CEO of the nonprofit Internet Society said Friday.
The outages disrupted flights, banks, media outlets and companies across the world, but Sullivan said there was no loss of connectivity and data continued to flow.
“This was a failure of some systems using a specific operating system and a specific vendor’s management tools," he said. "Unfortunately, those systems were used widely and for many functions critical to people’s daily lives.”
Meanwhile, some cybersecurity experts are warning that organizations affected by the internet outage should be alert for scammers.
“Organizations should be aware and wary of that and making sure that when they’re talking about getting this problem remediated, that they’re talking to trusted organizations,” said Gartner analyst Eric Grenier. “Attackers will definitely prey on organizations as a result of this.”
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The spelling of Andrew Sullivan's last name has been corrected.
Disruptions in Southern California didn't close ports
SANTA ANA — Ports in Southern California saw some disruptions from the internet outage but still were operating.
Mario Cordero, chief executive of the Port of Long Beach, said four marine terminals experienced computer issues but resolved them with minimal disruption.
One of the Port of Los Angeles’ seven terminals had limited operations overnight, said spokesperson Phillip Sanfield.
“Basically, it’s been minimal impact overnight and we’re going to have to wait and see how these terminals come up over the next several hours,” Sanfield said.
In Brazil and South Africa, banks report service disruptions
SAO PAULO — Bradesco, one of the main banks in Brazil, notified its users via its app that digital services were unstable due to a global cyber outage, but its ATMs were working normally. Bradesco has over 100 million clients.
In South Africa, at least two major banks said they experienced service disruptions as customers complained they weren’t able to make payments using their bank cards at grocery stores and gas stations or use ATMs. Both said they were able to restore services hours later.
Ticket sales for Universal Studios Japan affected by global system outage
TOKYO — Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, western Japan, said the global system outage that started Friday will continue to affect ticket sales at the park over the weekend.
The park said its ticket booths sales will not be available Saturday and Sunday and asked visitors to purchase their tickets on the USJ official website or via designated ticket sales site Lawson Ticket. Park attractions aren't affected.
Emergency call centers in some US states report outages
Officials in some U.S. states, including Alaska, Virginia and Iowa, warned of problems to 911 emergency call centers in their areas. Alaska State Troopers warned that many 911 and nonemergency call centers across the state weren't working correctly and shared alternate numbers.
In Virginia, the City of Fairfax Police Department said on social media that it was experiencing technical difficulties with its phone systems, including 911. The department shared a nonemergency number for callers and said 911 could still be used, but calls wouldn't go directly to the dispatch center.
The New Hampshire Emergency Services and Communications reported a temporary interruption to 911 calls early Friday, with the system fully restored several hours later, officials said. In Iowa, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office warned on social media that phone lines were down and 911 calls might be routed to neighboring counties, but emergency calls would be promptly redirected to the sheriff’s office.
In communities across California, police said they used cellphones to pull up maps and went back to “old-school” methods such as dispatching calls over radio and writing out police reports by hand.
“We just go back to people writing it down,” San Diego Sheriff’s Lt. Gavin Lanning told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “It wasn’t as easy as normal.”
IT companies in Sri Lanka affected by global outage
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The National Center for Cyber Security in Sri Lanka says four information technology companies in Sri Lanka have been affected because of the global outage.
Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team, which is known as Sri Lanka CERT, says that so far only four companies have informed them of being affected and the center attributed them to a problem with the cybersecurity platform CrowdStrike.
Charuka Damunupola, lead information security engineer at Sri Lanka CERT, says those companies were using CrowdStrike
NEW YORK (AP) — Much of the world faced online disarray Friday as a widespread technology outage affected companies and services across industries — grounding flights, knocking banks and hospital systems offline and media outlets off air.
At the heart of the massive disruption is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that provides software to scores of companies worldwide. The company says the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows, and that the issue behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.
CrowdStrike has said a fix is on the way. Still, disarray continued hours after the problem was first detected.
Here's what you need to know.
How did Friday's global outage happen?
Friday's chaos began with a faulty update was pushed out from CrowdStrike. In a Friday post on social media platform X, President and CEO George Kurtz cited a “defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts” — noting that Mac and Linux hosts were not impacted.
But, because scores of companies rely on CrowdStrike for their security needs with Windows as their operating system, the consequences of this kind of technical problem are far-reaching.
Long lines formed at airports in the U.S., Europe and Asia as airlines lost access to check-in and booking services during peak summer travel. Banks in South Africa and New Zealand reported outages impacting payments and online services. And hospitals had problems with their appointment systems, while officials in some U.S. states warned of 911 problems in their areas.
DownDectector, which tracks user-reported disruptions to internet services, recorded that airlines, payment platforms and online shopping websites across the world were affected — although the disruption appeared piecemeal and was apparently related to whether the companies used Microsoft cloud-based services.
Still, experts stress that Friday’s disruptions underscore the vulnerability of worldwide dependence on software that comes from only a handful of providers.
“This is a very, very uncomfortable illustration of the fragility of the world’s core internet infrastructure,” said Ciaran Martin, a professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and former Head of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre.
What is CrowdStrike?
CrowdStrike is a U.S. cybersecurity company that provides software to companies around the world and across industries. It bills itself as being the globe's most advanced cloud-based security technology provider.
“We stop breaches,” the cybersecurity firm writes on its website.
According to the company's website, CrowdStrike was founded in 2011 and launched in early 2012. CrowdStrike listed on the Nasdaq exchange five years ago. Last month, the Austin, Texas company reported that its revenue rose 33% in the last quarter from the same quarter a year earlier — logging a net profit of $42.8 million, up from $491,000 in the first quarter of last year.
CrowdStrike has a partnership with Amazon Web Services and its “Falcon for Defender” security technology is designed to supplement Microsoft Defender to prevent attacks.
Is there a fix?
Disruptions on Friday have continued hours after CrowdStrike first identified the issue. But both the company and Microsoft say that they're working to get systems back online.
In an emailed statement, Crowdstrike said that it was “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts" — adding that a fix “had been deployed” for the identified issue.
Microsoft 365 posted on social media platform X that the company was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact” and that they were “observing a positive trend in service availability.”
Spokesperson Frank X. Shaw added in an emailed statement that the company was “actively supporting customers to assist in their recovery.” Both CrowdStrike and Microsoft are also appearing to engage IT personnel on official online channels, such as Reddit.
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NEW YORK (AP) —A major internet outage affecting Microsoft is disrupting flights, banks, media outlets and companies across the world, with problems continuing hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.
Airlines and airports in the United States, Europe, Australia, India and elsewhere were reporting problems, with some flights grounded. Retail outlets, banks, railway companies and hospitals in several parts of the world were also affected in what appeared to be an unprecedented internet disruption.
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Emergency call centers in some US states report outages
Officials in some U.S. states, including Alaska, Virginia and Iowa, warned of problems to 911 emergency call centers in their areas. Alaska State Troopers warned that many 911 and nonemergency call centers across the state weren't working correctly and shared alternate numbers.
In Virginia, the City of Fairfax Police Department said on social media that it was experiencing technical difficulties with its phone systems, including 911. The department shared a nonemergency number for callers and said 911 could still be used, but calls wouldn't go directly to the dispatch center.
The New Hampshire Emergency Services and Communications reported a temporary interruption to 911 calls early Friday, with the system fully restored several hours later, officials said. In Iowa, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office warned on social media that phone lines were down and 911 calls might be routed to neighboring counties, but emergency calls would be promptly redirected to the sheriff’s office.
In New England, the outage led some hospitals to cancel appointments.
A spokesman at Mass General Brigham, the largest health care system in Massachusetts, said the outage had resulted in all scheduled nonurgent surgeries, procedures and medical visits being canceled for Friday. Emergency departments remain open and care for patients in the hospital hasn't been impacted.
IT outage affects hospitals, border crossing, flights in Canada
TORONTO — The outage grounded some flights, disrupted hospitals and backed up border crossings in Canada on Friday.
Porter Airlines said it was canceling its flights for several hours because of the outage. Meanwhile, Air Canada, Canada’s largest airline, said there is no major impact to its operations, adding that it's monitoring the situation closely. University Health Network, one of Canada’s largest hospital networks, said that some of its systems had been impacted by the outage. In a post to social media, it said clinical activity was continuing as scheduled, but some patients may experience delays. Windsor Police reported long delays at both the Canada-United States border crossings at the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor tunnel.
German regional grocery chain temporarily shut hundreds of stores
BERLIN — A German regional grocery chain, Tegut, temporarily shut its 340 stores in the country Friday morning as the computer outage affected cash register systems.
By early afternoon, more than half of the stores were open again.
Banks in South Africa experience service disruptions for several hours
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — In South Africa, at least two major banks said they experienced service disruptions as customers complained they weren’t able to make payments using their bank cards at grocery stores and gas stations or use ATMs. Both said they were able to restore services hours later.
Southern African regional airline Airlink also reported that its IT network and telephone lines were down because of what it called a global network outage, but said flights weren't affected.
London Stock Exchange experiencing disruptions, but trading not affected
LONDON — The London Stock Exchange says it is experiencing disruptions from the technology outage that has created chaos around the globe.
The LSE says its regulatory news service was not working Friday morning, but the outage hadn't affected trading.
“We are currently experiencing a third party technical issue which is impacting some of our services,” a London Stock Exchange Group spokesperson said in a statement.
The exchange says it’s trying to resolve the problem as soon as possible.
Long lines at many airports around the world, but some systems back online
Long queues have formed at many airports around the world as the global internet outage hit check-in procedures for flights — although in some locations systems were now back online.
Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport was gradually returning to normal operations, the airport said in a statement, though some airlines had been forced to cancel flights after being hit with the outage from 7 a.m. local time (0500 GMT).
“Passenger handling continued with some restrictions. Departures took place with restrictions. There are still waiting times. Unfortunately, some flights had to be canceled by the airlines. The airport’s systems have been restarted and we are gradually returning to normal operations,” the airport said.
German-based airline Eurowings, a budget subsidiary of Lufthansa, says it had to cancel German domestic flights as well as services to and from the U.K. because of disruption to its check-in and boarding processes. It called on people traveling inside Germany to book train tickets and submit them for reimbursement.
In South Korea, several low-cost airlines reported problems, triggering delays in passenger boardings at Incheon international Airport, the country’s biggest airport, airport officials said.
Jeju Air Co. said it was experiencing problems with ticketing and other services on its website. Air Premia Inc. said key services on its website, such as ticket bookings, cancellations and online check-ins, weren't working. The website of Eastar Jet Co. wasn’t accessible as of early Friday evening. Incheon airport officials and the country’s Transport Ministry said they were checking details of damages.
AirAsia announced on its Thai Facebook page that its reservation and check-in system had been impacted and encouraged passengers to go to airports early as they might face slower check-in and longer lines.
In the U.S., United Airlines said that the outage was impacting its computer systems and warned customers of potential flight delays. The carrier said some flights are resuming and it is issuing waivers to make it easier to change travel plans within its website.
Cybersecurity company at heart of IT outage says the issue isn't a cyberattack or security incident
LONDON — The chief executive of the cybersecurity company at the heart of a worldwide Microsoft outage says it is working to fix a defect sent out in a Windows update.
“This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz posted on X. “The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”
Kurtz said there was a defect in a “single content update for Windows hosts.” Mac and Linux hosts weren't affected.
The company referred customers to its support portal for updates.
Pharmacy chains in Norway report problems with providing prescription medication
HELSINKI — Two pharmacy chains in Norway said they are having problems providing customers with their prescription medicine and are facing substantial connection delays because of the global network problems.
Several branches of the Apotek1 pharmacy have closed across Norway after being affected by IT issues, which also shut down the chain’s online sales, the Norwegian news agency NTB reported.
The Boots drugstore and pharmacy chain also ran into problems delivering products to clients in Norway. Boots said that “due to global network problems, you may experience challenges with ordering and possible delays in dispatches,” NTB reported.
Paris Olympics organizers say some Olympic delegations' arrivals have been delayed
PARIS — Paris Olympics organizers say some Olympic delegations’ arrivals, as well as the delivery of some uniforms and accreditations, have been delayed because of the outage.
The organizers said in a statement that ticketing and the torch relay haven't been affected.
“Our teams have been fully mobilized to ensure the continuity of operations at optimum levels,” organizers said.
Internet outage causes problems at most doctors' offices across England
LONDON — Britain’s National Health Service says a global internet outage is causing problems at most doctors’ offices across England.
NHS England said in a statement that the glitch was hitting the appointment and patient record system used across the health service. The state-funded NHS treats the vast majority of people in the U.K.
The NHS said the issue was affecting the majority of family doctors’ practices, but wasn't hitting the 999 number used to call for emergency ambulances.
Airlines across the world report disruptions to flights
Airlines across the world, from Thailand to Australia, India, the United States and several European countries, reported disruptions to check-in systems and other issues that caused flights to be grounded or delayed.
With athletes and spectators from around the world heading to France for the Paris Olympics, the Paris airport authority says its computer systems ″are not impacted″ by the global outage, but several airlines and airports elsewhere are.
As a result, ″this situation has an impact on the operations of airlines at Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly airports: delays in check-in, delays and temporary suspension of some flights. Our teams are mobilized to orient and assist passengers,″ the airport authority said in a statement.
In the U.S., the FAA said the airlines United, American, Delta and Allegiant had all been grounded.
Thailand’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, a gateway to one of the world’s most visited cities, reported that some airlines were forced to check in passengers manually because of outages to their systems, while in the country's second largest airport of Don Mueang, Air Asia was also checking passengers in manually.
Director of Tourism of Thailand, the country’s tourism authority, told state broadcaster Thai PBS the issue was with Navitaire, an e-commerce platform for air travel, and up to six airports had been affected.
In Germany, flights at Berlin-Brandenburg Airport were halted for several hours from Friday morning because of check-in problems, while some flights were canceled. An airport spokeswoman said flights resumed after 10 a.m. Issues were also reported in the busy European hubs of Amsterdam, Zurich and Rome.
Baltic container hub in Poland suspends business
WARSAW — Baltic Hub, a major container hub in the Baltic port of Gdansk, Poland, says it's battling problems resulting from the global system outage.
Their entry gates are temporarily closed and they have suspended business, the Baltic Hub said in a statement.
British broadcaster back on air
LONDON — Britain's Sky News was broadcasting again after the outage knocked it off the air during the morning. The news anchor referred to printed notes as Sky News got back on the air. The broadcaster was able to deliver news online, on its app and website during the broadcast outage.
Milan's stock exchange index information restored
ROME — Borsa Italiana, the company that manages Milan’s stock exchange, said the “correct disclosure of the index FTSE MIB has been restored.” Earlier Friday, the company had said that the index hadn't been updated, without providing additional information.
Israel's Cyber Directorate attributes outage to cybersecurity platform Crowdstrike
JERUSALEM — Israel’s Cyber Directorate said on Friday that it was among those affected by the global outages, attributing them to a problem with the cybersecurity platform Crowdstrike. The outage also hit the country’s post offices and hospitals, according to the ministries of communication and health.
A recording playing on CrowdStrike’s customer service line said, “CrowdStrike is aware of the reports of crashes on Microsoft ports related to the Falcon sensor." It attributed the problems to one of its products used to block online attacks. It said callers should monitor its customer support portal.
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A widespread Microsoft outage disrupted flights, banks, media outlets and companies around the world on Friday.
Escalating disruptions continued hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.
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.
News outlets in Australia reported that airlines, telecommunications providers and banks, and media broadcasters were disrupted as they lost access to computer systems. Airlines in the U.K., Europe and India reported problems and some New Zealand banks said they were offline.
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.
New Zealand's acting prime minister, David Seymour, said on X that officials in the country were “moving at pace to understand the potential impacts” of the global problem.
“I have not currently received any reporting to indicate these issues are related to malicious cyber security activity,” Seymour wrote. The issue was causing “inconvenience" for the public and businesses, he added.
Israel’s Cyber Directorate that it was among the places affected by the global outages, attributing them to a problem with the cybersecurity platform Crowdstrike. The outage also hit the country’s post offices and hospitals, according to the ministries of communication and health.
Meanwhile, major disruptions reported by airlines and airports grew.
In the U.S., the FAA said the airlines United, American, Delta and Allegiant had all been grounded. Travelers at Los Angeles International Airport slept on a jetway floor, using backpacks and other luggage for pillows, due to a delayed United flight to Dulles International Airport early on Friday.
Airlines, railways and television stations in the United Kingdom were being disrupted by the computer issues. The budget airline Ryanair, train operators TransPennine Express and Govia Thameslink Railway, as well as broadcaster Sky News are among those affected.
“We’re currently experiencing disruption across the network due to a global third party IT outage which is out of our control,’’ Ryanair said. “We advise all passengers to arrive at the airport at least three hours before their scheduled departure time.”
Edinburgh Airport said the system outage meant waiting times were longer than usual. London’s Stansted Airport said some airline check-in services were being completed manually, but flights were still operating.
Widespread problems were reported at Australian airports, where lines grew and some passengers were stranded as online check-in services and self-service booths were disabled. Passengers in Melbourne queued for more than an hour to check in, although flights were still operating.
Airline operations in India were disrupted, affecting thousands.
The privately-owned IndiGo airlines told the passengers on X that the Microsoft outage on Friday impacted airline operations in India, inconveniencing thousands of passengers.
Several airlines made statements on X saying that they were following manual check-in and boarding processes and warned of delays due to technical problems.
Hong Kong’s Airport Authority said in a statement that the outage was affecting some airlines at the city’s airport and they had switched to manual check-in.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport said on its website that the outage was having a “major impact on flights” to and from the busy European hub. The outage came on one of the busiest days of the year for the airport, at the start of many people’s summer vacations.
In Germany, Berlin Airport said Friday morning that “due to a technical fault, there will be delays in check-in.” It said that flights were suspended until 10 a.m. (0800GMT), without giving details, German news agency dpa reported.
Zurich Airport, the busiest in Switzerland, suspended landings on Friday morning but said flights headed there that were already in the air were still allowed to land. It said that several airlines, handling agents and other companies at the airport were affected, and that check-in had to be done manually in some cases, but that the airport’s own systems were running.
At Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport, some US-bound flights had posted delays, while others were unaffected.
Australia appeared to be severely affected by the issue. Outages reported on the site DownDetector included the banks NAB, Commonwealth and Bendigo, and the airlines Virgin Australia and Qantas, as well as internet and phone providers such as Telstra.
Hospitals in Britain and Germany also reported problems.
Several practices within the National Health Service in England reported that the outage had hit their clinical computer system that contains medical records and is used for scheduling.
“We have no access to patient clinical records so are unable to book appointments or provide information,” Church Lane Surgery in Brighouse in Northern England said on the social media platform X. “This is a national problem and is being worked on as a high priority.”
The NHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In northern Germany, the Schleswig-Holstein University Hospital, which has branches in Kiel and Luebeck, said it had canceled all elective surgery scheduled for Friday, but patient and emergency care were unaffected.
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. Some news anchors broadcast live online from dark offices, in front of computers showing “blue screens of death.”
In South Africa, at least one major bank said it was experiencing “nationwide service disruptions” as customers reported they were unable to make payments using their bank cards at grocery stores and gas stations.
The New Zealand banks ASB and Kiwibank said their services were down.
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.