Computer failure: several airlines suspend flights in major cities around the world

GO TV

Washington.- All flights of several major US airlines, including Delta, United and American Airlines, were grounded on Friday due to a computer outage blamed on Microsoft.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed the incident, saying it affected all flights of the country’s airlines. The FAA also said that system upgrades were being made to restore normal operations.

In addition to the problems in the United States, several British airlines, the London Stock Exchange, railway companies, airports and the Sky television network have experienced disruptions in their operations due to the global computer problem.

Sky has been unable to broadcast its signal and Ryanair’s website has urged passengers to arrive at airports three hours in advance due to a computer problem beyond its control.

“We apologise for the interruption of this broadcast. We hope to restore Sky News broadcast shortly,” read the message on the channel’s screen against a white background.

Edinburgh and Manchester airports also reported service issues. The UK’s largest rail company, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), warned passengers of possible disruptions due to “widespread IT problems”.

GTR, the parent company of Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern rail lines, issued an alert on its social media channels:

“We are currently experiencing widespread IT issues across our network. Our IT teams are actively investigating to determine the cause of the issue.” The company also warned of potential outages and mentioned that other key systems, including real-time customer information platforms, were affected.

The Telegraph newspaper reported that Troy Hunt, a cyber security researcher, said that “something very strange is happening” around the world and added that his Windows computers suddenly displayed a blue screen.

In Australia and New Zealand, a massive outage affected computer systems, causing travel delays, affecting television broadcasts and knocking supermarket systems offline. Australia’s National Cyber ​​Security Coordinator clarified that the failure was due to a third-party software platform, initially ruling out hackers’ involvement.

At Sydney Airport, long queues were seen due to the disruption of some air operations and terminal services. An airport spokesman said that although flights were continuing to take off and land, delays could occur overnight. Christchurch International Airport in New Zealand reported similar problems, affecting flight arrivals and departures. In addition, banks and the New Zealand parliament also suffered disruptions to their computer networks.

Australia’s national broadcasting service, the ABC, experienced a major outage affecting some television and radio broadcasts. One of the country’s major supermarket chains also had problems with self-service terminals displaying error messages.

Telecoms company Telstra also reported disruptions to its systems, potentially affecting emergency services using its network. Telstra said the problems were due to global flaws in software provided by Microsoft and cybersecurity company Crowdstrike.

University of South Australia cybersecurity researcher Jill Slay said the global impact of these disruptions could be “massive.” In Germany, Berlin Brandenburg Airport suspended flights due to a technical problem, causing cancellations until 10:00 a.m. local time.

In Spain, Aena reported an incident in its computer system that is causing disruptions at the network’s airports, which could cause delays in the 7,400 operations scheduled for this Friday. The operations are being carried out with manual systems, Aena said on the social network X.

Iberia said it was working to resolve the problems as quickly as possible and that not all airports were equally affected.