A global technical system outage affected operations for multiple airlines on Thursday, July 18, causing flight delays and cancellations at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and across the country.
Frontier Airlines and Sun Country Airlines posted on X that they were among the airlines affected by the outage.
As of 8:15 p.m. Arizona time Thursday, 23 flights were canceled and 341 were delayed at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, according to FlightAware.
Frontier Airlines posted on X that a major Microsoft outage was affecting reservations, check-in, boarding pass access and some flights. An airline spokesperson told The Arizona Republic that the company grounded flights due to the outage but that it has since lifted the outage and is working with an outside vendor to restore normal operations.
Why were flights canceled and delayed at Sky Harbor?
An outage affecting Microsoft’s cloud computing platform Azure has disrupted airline operations.
Several users reached out to X’s Azure support account @AzureSupport for answers, which released the following statement in response to users’ complaints: “Hello, thank you for reaching out. We’re aware that some users are currently experiencing issues. Our team is investigating and working towards a resolution.”
The Arizona Republic has reached out to Microsoft for comment.
Which airlines were affected by the Microsoft computer outage?
Most of the flights canceled in Phoenix Thursday evening were operated by Frontier Airlines: FlightAware counted 17 canceled Frontier flights and 12 delayed at Sky Harbor.
The websites for Sun Country Airlines and Allegiant Air had been down since Thursday evening due to an Azure outage. As of 8 p.m. Thursday, Sun Country Airlines’ website was still offline, while Allegiant Air’s website was back up. Sun Country Airlines had two delayed flights departing from Sky Harbor on Thursday, and Allegiant Air had one delayed flight.
Frontier’s website was functional but displayed the message, “Our systems are currently affected by a Microsoft outage which is affecting other businesses as well. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.”
Frontier and Sun Country Airlines said in statements that the outage prevented customers from booking new flights or checking in for upcoming flights, which meant the airlines were unable to operate flights as normal.
Southwest Airlines had the most delayed flights departing from Sky Harbor on Thursday, with 165. Southwest’s customer service team said on Twitter that several of its flights, especially in Las Vegas, were affected by extreme weather and air traffic control directives.
What happens if my flight is cancelled?
If your flight is disrupted, contact your airline.
Check the flight status before heading to the airport.
Frontier Airlines said passengers on flights affected by the outage can request refunds.
Michael Salerno is an award-winning journalist who has been covering travel and tourism since 2014. His work as consumer travel reporter for The Arizona Republic aims to help readers navigate the stress of travel and get the best bang for their buck on their vacations. Contact him at Michael.Salerno@gannett.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter): Follow.
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