Microsoft Cloud outage grounds flights and disrupts airlines worldwide

Millions of MicrosoftWindows users globally are experiencing the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) due to a recent update from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm.

The error is causing the system toshut down or restart. Microsoft in a message said that the error is being caused due to a recent CrowdStrike update.

The outage has significantly affected various sectors, including companies, banks, and government offices.

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Airlines groundflights

Flights from several major Americanairlines – including Delta, United and American Airlines – were grounded on Friday(July 19) morning, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Earlier on Thursday, Frontier said its systems had been impacted by the outage, and offered refunds to passengers who were affected.

Other American airlineslikeAllegiant and SunCountry also said they were having difficultieswith their bookings, check-in and trip-managing functions online.

In the United States and India, several airlines took toX and informedtheir passengers about the issue, whichimpacted their operations.

In a post on X, SpiceJet said, "We're currently facing a technical issue in providing updates on flight disruptions. Our team is actively working to resolve this issue. We regret for any inconvenience caused and will update you once the issue is resolved. Thank you for your patience and co-operation."

The Akasa Airlines wrote, "Due to infrastructure issues with our service provider, some of our online services, including booking, check-in and manage booking services will be temporarily unavailable. Currently we are following manual check-in and boarding processes at the airports and hence request passengers with immediate travel plans to reach the airport early to check-in at our counters. We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused and want to assure you that our teams are working with our service provider to resolve the same at the earliest."

Australia is among the countries hardest hit by the outage. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, ABC News 24 struggled to broadcast news packages due to the issue.

Woolworths supermarkets, an Australian chain of grocery stores,experienced checkout system crashes andcustomers were unable to use their cards. Additionally, police systems in the countrywere also affected, leading to further complications.

Flights were suspended at Berlin Brandenburg airport in Germany on Friday morning. "There weredelays to check-in and flight operations had to be cancelled until 10:00 am (0800 GMT)," the spokeswoman told AFP,adding that she could not say when they would resume.

All Spanish airports impacted by IT outage

All Spanish airports were also impacted by theoutage, according to the operator.

What has Microsoft said about the outage?

Microsoft said in a statementit was taking mitigation actionsafter service disruptions.

"Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions," the company said in a post onX.

"We remain committed in treating this event with the highest priority and urgency while we continue to address the lingering impact for the remaining Microsoft 365 apps that are in a degraded state," it added.

(With inputs from agencies)