I'm a software engineer stranded in the IT-outage airport chaos. CrowdStrike broke a cardinal rule of software development, and I can't believe the fallout.

19.07.2024 - 23:52 / insider.com / London Heathrow

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Ahmed Al Sharif, 32, the CTO of Sandsoft, a game developer. Al Sharif was stranded at Barcelona airport on Friday because of the IT outage disrupting travel and other services. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I began my tech career almost two decades ago as a software engineer. I've been a startup founder and have worked for large companies like Electronic Arts and Meta.

I was supposed to be flying from Barcelona-El Prat Airport to London Heathrow on business at 11 a.m. local time.

I was surprised to arrive and find the flights shuttered. I was also surprised to learn there had been significant malfunctions across multiple Windows-based systems at the airport. It took some digging to find out that it was a global event.

Even as an engineer, the outage has been strange to witness. I didn't believe there was this much dependency on a single piece of third-party software or that pushing an update irresponsibly would cause this much havoc.

I left for the airport at 8 a.m. Before I got there, there were some early signs of something being wrong.

I couldn't log in to my online banking app, and things were a bit slow when I logged into my Outlook-based email, but I chalked it up to my hotel WiFi.

When I got to the airport at around 8:20 a.m., it was packed. The queues were endless. Several check-in desks displayed blue screens, and no one was being processed. I realized something bigger was happening.

I couldn't understand where to queue, and when I asked an airport advisor, they said there was no point queuing now because there was a problem with the ticketing, booking, and reservation systems.

I asked if our airport was the only one affected, and they told me that it was happening everywhere.

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That's when my furious Googling began. I realized that the issue was with CrowdStrike, and it was happening globally.

Over the course of the day, baggage-drop machines, vending machines, and most display boards at the airport weren't working.

Check-ins were being done manually. Before I was given a handwritten paper ticket, I had to prove I had booked a flight for that day by showing staff my emails as proof of payment. Anyone with checked luggage had to bring it to the gate, and airport staff were throwing it into the cargo hold by hand.

My own flight has been delayed by six hours, and I'm still in the airport as we're speaking. It's been annoying and inconvenient, but thankfully, the company is covering my travel, and they understand the situation is out of my control.

I've spoken to people waiting in the airport for 11 hours. People seem pretty frustrated.

During my delay, I've been trying to understand the