CrowdStrike airline delays reverberate in wake of IT outage

Delta Air and United Airlines, both pummeled in Friday’s CrowdStrike IT outage causing thousands of passengers to endure travel delays throughout the US and beyond, are reporting some operations have started to come back online.

The technical issues forced multiple carriers to ground flights, including American Airlines, as well as smaller US carriers, such as Spirit, Frontier, and Peer American Airlines, which reported temporary ground stops as well.

CrowdStrike revealed the outage was due to an update sent out Thursday, affecting Microsoft systems. CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said late Friday the company is now in recovery mode, focusing its manpower to make sure the thousands of impacted customers worldwide get back online.

Initially, 2200 flights had been canceled and more than 7,000 were delayed across the US, as reported by Reuters at about 1:30 p.m. ET., according to the airline industry flight tracker FlightAware.

By 5:00 p.m. ET on Friday, those numbers on FlightAware's "Misery Map" had dropped to about 1400 cancellations, and 350 delays in the US.

Furthermore, the airport tech issues caused various stand-alone systems to malfunction, including systems for calculating aircraft weight, customer check-ins, and phone systems in call centers, United said in a statement earlier Friday amid the chaos.

“We have resumed some flights but expect schedule disruptions to continue throughout Friday as we continue to troubleshoot many systems and programs,” United posted online later in the day.

Early this morning, a third-party software outage impacted computer systems worldwide, including at United. We have resumed some flights but expect schedule disruptions to continue throughout Friday as we continue to troubleshoot many systems and programs.

For customers…

undefined United Airlines (@united) July 19, 2024

The US Federal Aviation Administration said it was closely monitoring the impact on airlines, several who had reached out to the FAA for assistance.

Besides passenger airlines both commercial mail carriers Federal Express and United Parcel Service (UPS) reported substantial disruptions through its networks, warning of potential delays, according to Reuters.

Reports on social media showed stranded passengers complaining of being unable to even purchase food or drinks due to the outage affecting airport retail computer systems as well.

This X post from a local CBS reporter in Baltimore at 8:00 a.m. ET Friday morning, shows a crowded Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BMI) outside of the capitol.

"Airport staff is now starting to bring out water and cookies for travelers who have been camped out here since last night," wrote CBS reporter Alexus Davila.

8:12am The crowd continues to grow. Southwest Airlines is not impacted by this outage here at the BWI Airport. Airport staff is now starting to bring out water and cookies for travelers who have been camped out here since last night. @wjz pic.twitter.com/y6sMRAqbiv

undefined Alexus Davila (@AlexusVDavila) July 19, 2024

The last major FAA grounding at US airports due to computer system failures happened in January 2023 when a technical glitch caused the pilot’s critical flight safety alert system or Notice to Air Missions System (NOTAM) to go down, also stranding thousands of passengers.

The NOTAM outage happened just weeks after a faulty router took Southwest Airlines’ reservation system offline and stranded thousands of passengers during the holiday rush in December 2022.

More than 16,000 flights were canceled and the airline lost north of $1 billion due to the Southwest incident.

Microsoft reported the outage started about 6 pm ET on Thursday, with a portion of its customers experiencing issues with multiple Azure services across the midwest and central regions of the US, according to Reuters.