American, Delta and United Airlines grounded flights due to communications issues Friday morning, per an FAA alert that Reuters noted came roughly an hour after Microsoft overcame a cloud services outage that hit several low-cost carriers.
The big picture: There were reports of massive online outages disrupting travel, banking and news outlets worldwide on Friday, as CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company that services multiple industries, went down across the world.
George Kurtz, president and CEO of CrowdStrike, said in a post to X the company was “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.”
It was not immediately clear if the outages were connected to Microsoft’s earlier issues, though Australian telecommunications company Telstra said in a post to X: “If you’re having holdups when trying to reach us this afternoon, it’s because of a global issue affecting both Microsoft and CrowdStrike.”
Zoom out: In the U.K., the National Health Service’s system that coordinates appointments for family doctors was disrupted, broadcaster Sky News went off air and railway firms reported delays due to “widespread” technology issues, per the BBC.
The outages also impacted the media, banks and government departments in New Zealand and Australia.
The Australian National Emergency Management Agency convened a meeting that reportedly included water and energy authorities, with retailers and communications providers invited.
In South Africa, Capitec Bank, one of the country’s largest banks, confirmed in a post to X that it was “experiencing nationwide service issues, affecting all services” amid the “international issue which is affecting multiple banks and retailers.”
What they’re saying: A United spokesperson said in an emailed statement Friday morning that a “third party software outage is impacting computer systems worldwide,” including at the airline.
“While we work to restore those systems, we are holding all aircraft at their departure airports,” the spokesperson added. “Flights already airborne are continuing to their destinations.”
An American Airlines spokesperson said in a Friday morning email that a ground stop in place was impacting departing flights and the company was in contact with its planes “currently in flight.”
The airline was “aware of a technical issue with CrowdStrike that is impacting multiple carriers” and it was working with the cybersecurity firm in an effort to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, per the statement.
Delta confirmed in a Friday morning online post that it had paused all flights as it worked through “a vendor technology issue.”
Representatives for Microsoft and the FAA did not immediately respond to Axios’ request for comment.
State of play: Frontier Airlines briefly grounded all flights on Thursday after being “impacted by a Microsoft outage,” which it noted in a post to X was “also affecting other companies.”
Microsoft said in an online update that “many customers” in the Central U.S. region “experienced issues” with its Azure cloud computing platform services, “including failures with service management operations and connectivity or availability of services” from around 6pm ET.
However, the Azure status page indicated later Thursday that these issues had been resolved.