Severe Technical Issue Disrupts Flights Globally

Airlines around the world—as well as medical service
providers, banks, media companies and other businesses—have had their
operations negatively affected because of a global technical outage many
companies reported on Friday.

American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines were
among the carriers that issued ground stops earlier Friday morning. American
posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that as of 5 a.m. Eastern Time, it had
been able to “safely re-establish our operation.” 

United, at around 6:30 a.m., posted that some flights had
resumed as the company continued to work to restore systems. The carrier issued
a waiver “to make it easter to change your travel plans” on the
United website or app.

Delta at 6:24 a.m. posted on its website that “due to a
vendor technology issue,” it was working to resume operations “as
quickly as possible.” The carrier also was working to issue a travel
waiver to allow customers scheduled to travel Friday to manage changes to their
itinerary via the carrier’s website or app.

Friday’s outage allegedly was caused by a software update
issued by CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm whose software is used by companies
around the world to protect against hackers and outside breaches, according to
a report
in The New York Times. According
to the Associated Press, the “disruption appeared piecemeal and was
apparently related to whether the companies used Microsoft cloud-based
services.” This issue follows a Microsoft outage that happened Thursday and
impacted some Microsoft clients in the central United States, according to the
report.

As of 6:50 a.m. Friday, FlightAware data showed that 1,324
flights globally had been cancelled and 17,326 were delayed. American had the
largest number of canceled flights at 244 or 6 percent of its schedule, with
115 delayed. United was third with 128 or 4 percent of scheduled flights
canceled and 127 delayed, and Delta fourth with 107 or 2 percent of flights
canceled and 118 delayed.