Thousands of Flights Cancelled Amid Global IT Outage

An ongoing IT issue is plaguing airline operations across the globe on Friday. As of 8 a.m. ET, there were nearly 2,700 cancelled flights globally, according to data from aviation analytics company Cirium.

In the U.S., carriers have cancelled 1,017 flights, or 4.2% of their planned schedule, so far. American, Delta, and United say they have resumed some flights while Southwest has remained largely unaffected by the outage.

Other non-U.S.-based carriers, including Air France, KLM, and Singapore Airlines, also reported IT troubles on Friday.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it is “closely monitoring” the issue in a statement. “Several airlines have requested FAA assistance with ground stops for their fleets until the issue is resolved. For more information, monitor fly.faa.gov for updates,” the agency added.

U.S. carriers were scheduled to operate 27,000 flights on Friday, carrying up to 3.7 million passengers.

What Happened

Airlines around the world are experiencing major IT issues, leading to widespread flight disruptions. The problems reportedly stem from a software update issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike that has caused computers running Microsoft Windows to crash.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz announced on social media that the issue had been identified and isolated, and engineers had deployed a fix. However, the outage has already impacted airlines, airports, banks, media companies, and other institutions globally.

CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We…

— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024

The situation is still developing, and it remains to be seen how quickly the fix will resolve the issues.

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Ryan Ewing

Ryan founded AirlineGeeks.com back in February 2013 and has amassed considerable experience in the aviation sector. His work has been featured in several publications and news outlets, including CNN, WJLA, CNET, and Business Insider. During his time in the industry, he's worked in roles pertaining to airport/airline operations while holding a B.S. in Air Transportation Management from Arizona State University along with an MBA. Ryan has experience in several facets of the industry from behind the yoke of a Cessna 172 to interviewing airline industry executives. Ryan works for AirlineGeeks' owner FLYING Media, spearheading coverage in the commercial aviation space.

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