Major airlines, media organizations, businesses and police forces around the world were hit by a major IT outage caused by a problem with Microsoft’s cloud computing services early Friday.
Flights were cancelled in several countries and shops and broadcasters in some countries were inaccessible after a power outage that appeared to affect Windows PCs.
Airlines including American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines all grounded flights on Friday morning citing communications issues, less than an hour after Microsoft fixed the glitch, Reuters reported. Sydney Airport, one of Australia’s largest, said there would be delays.
In Europe, Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport said there would be delays in passenger check-ins “due to a technical error,” and Aena, which operates 46 airports in Spain, said an “incident in the computer system” could cause delays.
Britain’s rail operator also blamed IT disruption for Friday morning’s cancellations and the London Stock Exchange blamed a “third party global technical issue” for stopping its regulated news service from posting any news.
In the US, Alaska State Police said in an update on Facebook shortly before 2.20am that 911 and non-emergency phone numbers across the state were down, “due to a nationwide technology outage.”
Users reported seeing a blue screen when trying to start their computers. The outage appears to have caused chaos at supermarket checkouts and many websites.
Microsoft said the issues with Azure Services and Microsoft 365 apps, including services like the Teams video conferencing app, had been fixed Friday morning, but companies across the U.S. and Europe were still reporting problems.
The company said “a small portion of services are still experiencing residual impact.”
The disruption has affected a number of news outlets including NBC News. Sky News, NBC News’ UK broadcast partner, was unable to broadcast live news.
“Sky News has been unable to broadcast live TV this morning, and we would like to express our apologies to viewers for the disruption. The vast majority of our news coverage is still available online, and we are working hard to restore all services,” Sky News chief executive David Rhodes said on X.
Broadcasters in Australia also reported the issues. The country’s national cybersecurity coordinator, Michelle McGuinness, told X that the issues did not appear to be the result of a cyberattack.
This is a developing story, check back here for updates soon.
