United Airlines has resumed flights after briefly grounding all planes in the US on Tuesday because of a computer glitch.
The carrier said “a software update caused a widespread slowdown in United’s technology systems”.
Flights already in the air continued to their destination as planned, the airline said.
United said it “identified a fix” to allow its planes to start taking off about an hour later.The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed United had asked the agency to pause all its departures nationwide.
The ground stop was lifted shortly before 14:00 EST (19:00 BST).
Some 211 flights nationwide were delayed by the stoppage.
In January, an FAA computer outage halted departures of all US flights for several hours.
Posted Jul 19, 2024 –
Some U.S. flights resume after outages disrupted businesses around the world
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A Delta Airlines Airbus A330-941 arrives at Los Angeles International Airport at the start of the 4th of July weekend on July 03, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
A Delta Airlines Airbus A330-941 arrives at Los Angeles International Airport at the start of the Fourth of July weekend on July 3, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Photo: AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Delta and United Airlines resumed some flights Friday morning, hours after a massive technology outage grounded aircraft worldwide.
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.”
CrowdStrike said Friday morning that “the issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”
The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday that it is “closely monitoring a technical issue impacting IT systems at U.S. airlines” and that several airlines had requested “assistance with ground stops for their fleets.”
The FAA alert came roughly an hour after Microsoft overcame a cloud services outage that hit several low-cost carriers, per Reuters.
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.
In an updated statement Friday, United said it was “resuming some flights but expect schedule disruptions to continue throughout Friday.”
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 late Friday morning that it had “resumed some flight departures” but that “additional delays and cancelations are expected.”
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.
Representatives for Microsoft did not immediately respond to Axios’ request for comment.
However, the Azure status page indicated later Thursday that these issues had been resolved.
Several airports — including Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, Toronto Pearson International Airport — confirmed late-morning Friday that some flights were resuming.
Zoom in: The Phoenix Police Department said Friday that it had successfully restored systems to its 911 dispatch center, which had been impacted by the outage.
Our thought bubble, via Axios’ Alex Fitzpatrick: Even after these ground stops are lifted, travelers should brace for delays throughout the day as airlines work to get their planes into their scheduled positions.