SEOUL/LONDON:
Air passengers around the world faced delays, cancellations and problems at check-in as airports and airlines were caught up in a massive IT outage that also affected industries from banks to media companies.
In Edinburgh, a Reuters witness said boarding pass scanners brought up a “server offline message”, with the airport saying passengers should not travel to the airport without first checking their flight status online.
Elsewhere, airports and airlines advised customers to arrive earlier than normal for flights. Analysts said the outage was likely linked to a bug in Microsoft software used worldwide.
Microsoft said users may not be able to access various Office 365 apps and services due to a “configuration change in a subset of workloads supported by Azure.”
Hong Kong International Airport said a Microsoft outage was affecting many airlines and had switched to manual check-in, but flight operations were not affected.
Singapore’s Changi Airport also said check-ins were handled manually.
According to a notice Crowdstrike sent to its customers and reviewed by Reuters, the company’s “Falcon Sensor” software causes Microsoft Windows to crash and display a blue screen, known informally as the “Blue Screen of Death.”
The alert, sent at 05:30 GMT on Friday, also shared a manual workaround to fix the problem. A Crowdstrike representative did not respond to emails or calls seeking comment.
Swarma is one of several technology companies developing software that connects large numbers of drones that would be beyond the ability of humans to control.
The aviation sector is particularly hard hit because of its sensitivity to timing. Airlines rely on a tightly coordinated schedule that is often directed by air traffic control. A delay of just a few minutes can throw off the flight schedule for takeoffs and landings for an airport and an airline for the rest of the day.
Airlines in the United States, Asia and Europe, including major carriers such as Ryanair, Delta and Air India, said they either experienced delays or disruptions.
Several US carriers, including American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Airlines, issued ground stops for all their flights early Friday due to communication problems, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration.
In Europe, Schiphol Airport, Berlin Airport, London Gatwick, Edinburgh Airport and others said they were affected by the outage.
“We expect longer waiting times and some flight cancellations. Not all airports in Europe were affected as the issue is linked to a specific operating system, Microsoft Azure,” said Agata Lyznik, spokeswoman for the ACI Europe airport group.
Some airlines said they were already back online, with Spanish carrier Iberia saying it had managed to avoid flight cancellations.
“As of 9:25am the e-counters and e-check-ins have been reactivated. There have been some delays,” a spokesperson said.
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