LONDON – Major airlines, media companies, banks and telecommunications companies around the world reported systems outages on Friday that disrupted their operations.
In the United States, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and others halted flights less than an hour after Microsoft said it had resolved a cloud-service-related outage that affected several low-cost carriers.
It was not immediately clear whether the grounding of flights was related to the Microsoft cloud outage, and the Washington state-based tech giant did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Power outages spread widely
The technology outage affected widespread travel from Britain to Singapore on Friday, with British broadcaster Sky News going offline and British rail companies reporting lengthy delays. Departure boards at several British airports appeared to freeze, passengers reported on social media.
The London Stock Exchange reported confusion, some hospitals also reported difficulties processing appointments, and several retail chains said they were unable to accept payments.
In Australia, media, banks and telecommunications companies were hit by outages that the government said appeared to be linked to issues with cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but when Reuters contacted its tech support to say it was aware of reports of sensor-related crashes on Microsoft’s Windows operating system, the company played a recorded phone message.
The office of Australia’s national cyber security coordinator, Michelle McGuinness, said in a post on X that there was no information to indicate the outage was the result of a cybersecurity incident.
Spanish authorities reported a “computer incident” at all of the country’s airports.
Berlin’s main airport said check-in had been delayed due to “technical issues”.
Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers, warned passengers that all airlines operating across its network could be affected. The company did not disclose the nature of the disruptions.
There have been reports that a cargo terminal in Gdansk on Poland’s Baltic coast is not operating properly.
The New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority said a global technical outage had taken some of its systems offline, but MTA train and bus service was not affected.
Article contributed by Reuters
