Global IT outage continues to cause delays for thousands of travelers
More than 1,600 flights were cancelled on Monday as the airline and other sectors recovered from a massive global IT outage that struck just before the start of the weekend.
Millions of Windows PCs from hospitals, 911 systems, banks and media organizations, as well as airlines and airports, crashed early Friday morning after cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike pushed out a faulty update to Windows systems. This caused the systems to crash and many users experienced what is known as a “blue screen of death.”
CrowdStrike said it quickly identified and resolved the issue, adding that its systems are now operating normally and customers remain protected from cyberthreats. Mac and Linux systems were not affected.
“We understand the seriousness of this situation and deeply regret the inconvenience and disruption,” the company added.
At the same time, CEO George Kurtz warned that customers should be wary of online attackers trying to take advantage of the chaos.
“We know that adversaries and malicious actors will attempt to exploit these types of events,” Kurtz said. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant and ensure you contact official CrowdStrike representatives.”
Meanwhile, the effects of the power outage were still being felt.
According to the flight tracking website FlightAwareMore than 1,600 flights were cancelled on Monday, with another 30,000 delayed. That was down from Friday’s totals of more than 5,000 cancellations and 46,000 delays.
Much of the chaos involved Delta Airlines, which was responsible for about 800 of the cancellations on Monday. By Saturday evening, hundreds of complaints had been filed against the airline with the U.S. Department of Transportation, citing ongoing disruptions along with “unacceptable customer service policies,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a post on the social media platform X.
“I have made it clear to Delta that we will hold them to all applicable passenger protections,” Buttigieg said in his post.
Buttigieg said Delta has an obligation to promptly refund money to consumers who choose not to rebook, to provide timely refunds for food and hotels to those affected by the delays and cancellations, and to provide “adequate customer service.”
“No one should have to be stranded in an airport all night or wait on hold for hours to speak to a customer service representative,” Buttigieg said, encouraging customers to Report airlines that do not do this to his department.
Delta said Monday afternoon that the company is constantly working to get its systems back on track. About half of its IT systems are Windows-based, and the software bug forced IT teams to manually repair and reboot each system. Then the applications on each system had to be synchronized and communicate with each other again.
The airline added that the system it uses to ensure all flights have a full crew in the right place at the right time is “very complex and requires the most time and manual support to synchronise.”
