Cyber Outage Disrupts Thousands of Flights Globally—Here’s Everything Travelers Need to Know

19.07.2024 - 19:17 / afar.com / Air France

It was the content update nobody needed. When cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike issued an update to systems throughout the world running Microsoft Windows, scheduled to take place overnight from Thursday to Friday, those systems crashed. The result has been a tangled web of canceled and delayed flights, among numerous other business disruptions.

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” CrowdStrike said in a statement, adding that the issue has been identified and that a fix is being deployed.

But as of press time, nearly 32,000 flights and rising have been delayed globally and more than 3,600 flights have been canceled—a number that continues to rise by the minute—as airline operations briefly ground to a halt, creating chaos.

“Our flight from Istanbul to Paris [CDG] landed just before 10 a.m. [Friday]. We were worried about making a tight connection to Salt Lake, when until I spotted the headlines. We’ve since spent the entire day in the Air France lounge watching Delta add an hour every hour to our delay before canceling,” Afar contributor Jeri Clausing wrote in an email with the subject line: “Cyber outage hell.”

She noted that Delta partner airline Air France “is doing its best to help but [representatives] said their computers simply aren’t talking to each other. Air France says we have been rebooked, but who knows? It’s a nightmare.”

She said that airport hotels are pretty much sold out and sent a screenshot of a rate at the Hyatt Place at Charles de Gaulle priced at $15,061 per night. “I can only hope that rate is a mistake,” she said, adding, “We’re off to the fifth arrondissement. We’ll see what happens tomorrow. “

Clausing isn’t alone in being stranded today. Delta Air Lines has been the hardest hit with 745 canceled flights on Friday as of press time, according to flight tracking site FlightAware. American Airlines has 354 canceled flights and United has 342 canceled flights thus far.

Delta issued a fare and change fee waiver on all flights purchased on or before July 19 that are rebooked by July 24.

“A disruption caused by a global IT outage is resulting in a ground stop affecting our operation systemwide,” Delta said in a statement, adding that travelers should check their flight status “frequently” for up-to-the-minute updates.

“When rebooked travel occurs on or before July 24, 2024, in the same cabin of service as originally booked, the fare difference will be waived,” Delta stated, noting that a fare difference may apply if the fare class changes for the new booking.

United Airlines has issued a fare waiver due to the CrowdStrike outage, too, for flights purchased on or before July 19, to or from the following airports: Cleveland (CLE); Denver (DEN); Newark (EWR); Frankfurt