IT outages have been reported all around the world as airlines, airports, banks, and media firms have unexpectedly encountered continuing interruptions that have upended the everyday lives of possibly millions of people.
American Airlines, United, and Delta have requested a worldwide ground halt on all flights, according to an FAA advisory issued Friday morning.
However, at about 5 a.m. ET, American Airlines said that they were back up and operating as usual.
“Earlier this morning, a technical problem with a vendor affected many airlines, including American. As at 5 a.m. ET, we were able to securely resume operations. “We apologise to our customers for any inconvenience,” the message added.
The FAA has directed air traffic controllers to notify airborne pilots that airlines are presently experiencing communication challenges.
“No one here knows anything, the gate agents said we all know as much as they do,” Scott Sanders told ABC News, claiming that his aircraft from SeaTac Airport in Washington was delayed for two hours on the runway before passengers were deplaned. “I feel awful for the employees and those that have a sick loved one they need to get to or funerals, thankfully that’s not us.”
Meanwhile, planes will remain in the air, but no American, United, or Delta aircraft have taken off.
“We are aware of a technical problem with CrowdStrike that affects many carriers. American is working with CrowdStrike to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience,” American Airlines said in a statement obtained by ABC News.
“A third-party software outage is impacting computer systems worldwide, including at United,” United Airlines stated in a statement on Friday morning. “While we work to restore those systems, we are holding all aircraft at their departure airports. Flights that are already airborne will continue to their destinations.”
It is unclear how widespread the issue is but Melbourne Airport in Australia has also said they are “experiencing a global technology issue” which is impacting their check-in procedures.
Global IT outages have also been reported in many countries across the world including Berlin Airport in Germany, the London Stock Exchange, Google Cloud, Microsoft and Gatwick Airport in the United Kingdom.
“We’re investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services,” Microsoft said in a statement released on social media Friday morning.
Crowdstrike, the U.S. cybersecurity company, has admitted to being responsible for the error and are working to correct it.
“Crowdstrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows 4 related to the Falcon sensor. Please monitor the status via the tech alert on our customer support portal,” says a message on the Crowdstr
(ABC NEWS)
