Thousands of flights affected after global IT outage — what we know so far

19.07.2024 - 12:12 / thepointsguy.com / Sky News

Editor note: This article has been updated with the latest information.

A global Windows operating system glitch has caused significant disruptions across various industries worldwide, including travel.

The major IT outage has grounded flights and caused more than 1,300 flight cancelations as well as disrupted banking operations, and even temporarily took Sky News off the air in the U.K.

Here's a breakdown of what happened, the cause of the issue, who's affected, and what you should do if your travel plans are impacted.

In an unexpected turn of events, a global Windows glitch has wreaked havoc on IT infrastructure worldwide.

This unforeseen technical issue has grounded flights and caused widespread delays and operational disruptions across various travel sectors, including airlines and trains.

Globally there were around 110,000 scheduled commercial flights set for departure today, more than 27,000 of which were set to depart the U.S. Thus far, more than 1,000 flights from U.S. origins have been canceled, according to FlightAware, and more than 1,700 flights have been delayed. More than 20 departing flights have been canceled in Canada so far, among numerous delays.

As of 6 a.m. EST, 1,390 flights have been canceled globally, and this number is still growing. This could cause further disruptions across the weekend as airlines look to get back on track.

In a statement to TPG, a spokesperson for the FAA said:

"The FAA is closely monitoring a technical issue impacting IT systems at U.S. airlines. Several airlines have requested FAA assistance with ground stops for their fleets until the issue is resolved."

In particular, the IT outage has come during the busiest day of the year so far for U.K. airlines. Cirium data shows over 3,214 U.K. flight departures were expected today (Jul. 19), the highest number since Oct. 2019. More than 9,000 flights are currently scheduled to depart from U.K. airports alone over the next two days.

Germany has seen more than 90 departure flight cancelations so far; France is fairing slightly better with 28 cancelations, and Italy has 45 flight cancelations.

The cause of the outage was caused by a problematic update released by Crowdstrike, an Australian cybersecurity firm.

"CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted," a spokesperson for CrowdStike told TPG in a statement. "The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed."

The cybersecurity company confirmed that the tech issues were not a result of a security incident or cyberattack, adding that there team is "fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers."

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