Airports and airline across the globe are reporting disruptions as a third party software outage is impacting computer systems worldwide on July 19, 2024.
The software issue is linked to CrowdStrike - a cybersecurity software firm. The IT firm's shares fell nearly 20% in pre-market trading.
The issue stemmed from a ""defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,"" said CrowdStrike CEO and president George Kurtz.
He underlined the fact that it was ""not a security incident or cyberattack."" Kurtz added: ""The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website.""
Australian telecommunications company Telstra said in a statement: ""Like a number of other organisations, global issues affecting CrowdStrike and Microsoft are disrupting some of our systems.""
Additionally, Sydney Airport reported disruptions and flight delays as a result. ""A global technical outage has impacted some airline operations and terminal services,"" it said on social media platform X. ""Flights are currently arriving and departing however there may be some delays throughout the evening. We have activated our contingency plans and deployed additional staff to our terminals.""
Melbourne Airport reported that its passengers arriving from international destinations were being processed normally as its smartgates were working as normal, but there were delays for departures. It said Jetstar and Scoot are ""experiencing ongoing issues"" while all other international airlines were being processed normally. It added that domestically Qantas and Virgin were processing passengers slowly while Jetstar was ""experiencing a significant outage"".
US airlines such as American Airlines and United were impacted too.
""While we work to restore those systems, we are holding all aircraft at their departure airports,"" said United to Airline Economics. ""Flight already airborne are continuing to their destinations.""
In a later update, United said it was ""resuming some flights but expect schedule disruptions to continue throughout Friday [July 19]."" It added it has ""issued a waiver to make it easier for customers to change their travel plans.""
An American spokesperson confirmed that the carrier had been impacted but was able to ""safely re-establish"" its operations as of 5am ET.
In the US market, according to Cirium data there was already over 500 cancelled flights as of 6am ET, which is ""significantly higher than usual at this point in the day.""
Several users on X lamented the affected services at Delhi Airport. The Press Trust of India shared videos of self check-in kiosks down in Terminal 2. It reported that manual boarding passes were being issued at Goa Airport and manual check-in at Bengaluru airport.
Several European airports and airlines have reported disruptions. KLM claimed the IT issues were ""making it impossible to handle flights"".
Lufthansa said its ""profile and booking retrieval functionality may be limited"" as a result of the difficulties and that it is ""working on a solution"". Its subsidiary SWISS reported its flights operations were affected from the IT disruptions at Lufthansa and air traffic control. Its other subsidiary Eurowings said its check-in and boarding processed were ""impaired"" as a result of the IT issue. SAS also reported technical issues.
In addition, Berlin Brandenburg Airport, Prague Airport, and Amsterdam's Schiphol airport all reported issues. The latter said the IT issue was causing a ""major impact"" on flights to and from the airport.
Users on X reported ""chaos"" at Edinburgh Airport with massive queues wrapping all the way outside of the terminal. Customers whose flights have been cancelled are being asked to leave the airport.
With the summer holidays beginning for many people, the cancellations and delays will come as a heavy blow. Cirium had earlier forecast July 19 to be the busiest day of the year for UK airport departures - initially anticipating over 3,214 departures for the day. Now, however, new Cirium data reveals that over 3,343 flights have been cancelled globally as of 3pm BST on the day. This equates to around 3% of all scheduled services.
Various airports across the UK are reporting disruptions. Heathrow said it was implementing ""contingency plans to minimise any impact on journeys."" London Stansted said check-in and boarding processes have to be carried out manually, though it added: ""The majority of flights operating from the airport are unaffected, but the terminal is slightly busier than usual as a result of the situation.""
Cirium data at around 10:15 BST had revealed 1,078 flights have been cancelled globally. In the space of one hour, over 300 additional flights had been cancelled before more than doubling later in the day.
Global aviation industry grapples with unprecedented IT outage
