Microsoft IT outage: Heathrow & Gatwick chaos as dozens more flights cancelled – while TUI axes entire package holidays
HOLIDAYMAKERS are battling MORE flight delays and cancellations as travel chaos sparked from a global Microsoft IT outage stretches into the third day
Heartbroken flyers have been turned away at check-in desks at London Gatwick and Heathrow this morning as planes continue to sit on the tarmac.
It comes after more than 400 planes coming into and out of the UK have been grounded because of the botched CrowdStrike update, while over 7,000 were cancelled globally.
In a statement, CrowdStrike said it had found the glitch in a “single content update” for Windows – adding it was not a cyberattack.
In what has been branded the “largest IT outage in history”, major airport, airline, railway and supermarket services across the globe have been crippled by the tech issue – which could continue into next week.
Thousands of Brits were still sleeping on airport floors abroad Saturday night as flights were axed amid the ongoing chaos.
And, disappointed passengers had their plans of jetting off on dream holidays squashed again today.
As reported by the Independent, easyJet axed 24 flights to popular destinations such as Faro, Naples and Palma de Mallorca from Gatwick today.
The airline, that had nearly 4,000 flights scheduled across the weekend, also grounded a plane taking off in Manchester to Bordeaux.
And, holidaymakers travelling to Dusseldorf and Hamburg with Eurowings were told their trip was cancelled.
A scathing easyJet passenger, vented his frustrations on X and wrote: “Naples airport flight with easyJet at 10.30am to Gatwick.
“Cancelled at 6am. No alternative flights available and no help or guidance provided whatsoever on their behalf.
“Now booked in with Jet2 flying to Manchester.”
A spokesperson for easyJet said: ”Unfortunately, some flights were unable to operate due to the impact of weather and capacity related ATC restrictions imposed across Europe yesterday, 20 July, which led to delays and some cancellations, and as a result a knock-on impact which led to aircraft being positioned out of base.
“We are doing all possible to minimise the impact on our customers, providing those on cancelled flights with options to rebook or receive a refund, as well as hotel accommodation and meals where required.”
Meanwhile, one of the UK’s busiest airports, Heathrow, had to turn flyers away.
What sparked the tech meltdown?
By Ashley Armstrong, Business Editor
A minor tech tweak has been blamed for the world’s biggest IT outage.
Experts have warned that yesterday’s disaster highlights how reliant modern society is on technology and how vulnerable it is to glitches.
The “blue screen of death” on many Microsoft Windows computers was caused by a software update from a US cyber security firm called CrowdStrike.
Microsoft said that Windows devices running the CrowdStriek software “may encounter a bug check (BSOD [blue screen of death]) and get stuck in a restarting state”.
CrowdStrike, valued at over $80 billion before yesterday’s crisis, counts 29,000 companies as customers including schools, hospitals, supermarkets, airlines and banks.
The firm was quick to confirm the chaos was not caused by a cyber attack, but an update to its software.
When CrowdStrike’s software, called Falcon Sensor, was sent out automatically to its customers there was an error in the coding which meant Microsoft computers would not restart. The issues did not impact Apple Mac computers.
George Kurtz, CrowdStrike’s chief executive, said the cause of the problems was a “defect found in a single content update for Windows”. CrowdStrike’s security software is meant to detect viruses and online threats and is meant to block them. Yesterday it said that it was rolling back the update to the software.
Shares in the Austin, Texas based company plunged by 14 per cent as soon as US markets opened, wiping $10 billion (£7.7 billion) off the company in an instant.
British Airways chopped a dozen flights to tourism hotspots in Europe, and one London to Faro journey.
Aer Lingus also saw a trip grounded from Shannon to Heathrow.
The airlines have blamed adverse weather in Continental Europe and severe air-traffic control (ATC) restrictions.
TUI customers were also raging after the travel firm cut more of their package holidays in the wake of the Microsoft chaos.
The company were forced to call off 64 flights to and from the UK as disaster struck on Friday.
This saw more than 250 holidaymakers on TUI package trips to Morocco due to fly home at 8pm on Friday, “dumped” in the terminal at Marrakesh Airport for up to two days.
CrowdStrike’s massive blunder has seen ripple effects continue across the weekend, particularly within Manchester Airport.
TUI is now scrubbing entire package holidays to cope with damage control.
A passenger at Manchester Airport waiting to jet off to the sun soaked beaches of Lanzarote was informed at the last minute her trip was over.
She was due to fly out at 6am on Sunday morning but discovered just before midday the plane was grounded.
As reported by The Independent, the fuming Brit has now rebooked with Jet2 Holidays.
It follows similar scenes at a fellow Manchester Airport gate where holidaymakers with tickets to Cancun were told their flight was axed – eight hours after it was due to go airborne.
Disgruntled passenger Lindsay Dawes said staff informed them there was no one available to man the flight because crew had gone over hours.
It turned out the flight was diverted from Mexico to Palma de Mallorca to pick up holidaymakers who were stuck there as a result of the CrowdStrike fiasco.
Lindsay said: “We were then sent through security to arrivals where the staff basically couldn’t answer anything and told us to arrange our own hotels and transport for the night.”
CrowdStrike apology in full
IN a statement, the IT firm said:
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. This was not a cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.
We are referring customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous public updates on our blog.
We further recommend organisations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels.
Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.
We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption.
We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can deliver the services their customers are counting on.
We assure our customers that CrowdStrike is operating normally and this issue does not affect our Falcon platform systems.
If your systems are operating normally, there is no impact to their protection if the Falcon sensor is installed.
We will continue to provide updates to our community and the industry as they become available.
A spokesperson for Tui said: “Due to the global IT issue at airports and airlines around the world on Friday, Tui’s overall service this weekend was heavily impacted and we would like to apologise to everyone affected.
“Whilst the original IT issue was outside of our control, the impact to our systems on Friday has meant that our flight programme has suffered continued delays that we have not been able to resolve.
“We therefore made the difficult decision to cancel a number of outbound flights and delayed a number of inbound flights returning to the UK on Friday 19 July and Sunday 21 July.
“We are very sorry to all those customers impacted as we understand how disappointing this would have been and recognise that many customers were already at the airport waiting for their departure.”
“Our teams are working extremely hard to get everyone on, or home from, their holiday as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, Manchester Airport travellers have also been warned of TransPennine delays due to a points failure.
TransPennine Express said: “Train service running to and from these stations may be cancelled or delayed by up to 45 minutes.”
It comes as a staggering 167 flights scheduled to depart UK airports were axed on Friday – with a far greater number delayed.
Another 171 flights due to land in the UK were cancelled following the technical glitch.
Travel insurance
HOLIDAYMAKERS whose plans have been dashed are urged to check with their travel insurer to see what they are covered for.
MoneySuperMarket Travel Insurance said if a policy includes travel disruption cover – it may be possible to claim for disruption or losses incurred as a result of a trip being delayed or cancelled.
A spokesperson for the Association of British Insurers (ABI) said: “We can appreciate that it will be very stressful for anyone whose travel plans have been impacted by the IT outage.
“If your travel insurance policy includes cover for travel disruption then costs that you might incur as a result of travel delays or cancellations, and that are not recoverable from elsewhere, should be included.
“In the first instance, refunds should be sought from the airline, accommodation provider or tour operator and any bookings made through a credit card may also have recoverable cost protection.
“If unsure, check with your travel insurer to see what you’re covered for.”
Cirium said 5,078 flights – or one in 20 of those scheduled – were cancelled globally Friday.
The ‘blue screen of death’ not only rocked airports and airlines, but the NHS, supermarkets, trains, and banks.
NHS sources said an estimated 60 per cent of GP practices were affected.
And, a third of deliveries to pharmacies across England were hit after a major wholesaler declared it had been affected by the issues.
Meanwhile, Britain’s biggest train company Govia Thameslink Railway warned passengers to expect disruption because of “widespread IT issues”.
In addition, many businesses were unable to take digital payments or access key databases across the world.
And, in the US, emergency services lines went down in Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Ohio.
The UK’s top officials even met for an emergency Cobra meeting on Friday.
Global services affected by IT outage on Friday
Trains
- Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) – urged passengers to expect disruption due to “widespread IT issues”
- Gatwick Express – warned travellers they are “currently experiencing widespread IT issues”
- South Western Railway – all ticket vending machines are currently non operational – buy tickets online
- National Rail – some train operators are unable to access driver diagrams at certain locations, leading to potential short-notice train cancellations
- TransPennine Express – some TPE stations and systems are having IT issues – buy tickets online
- New York City’s MTA system affected
- Washington D.C Metro trains – delayed
Airports and airlines
- Manchester Airport – delays for those checking-in for Swissport flights
- London Gatwick – passengers may experience some delays while checking in and passing through security but should still arrive for their normal check-in time
- Ryanair – advising passengers to go home
- Edinburgh Airport – wait times longer than usual
- Stansted Airport – some airline check-in services reverted to being done manually, but main operational systems are unaffected and flights are still operating as normal
- Luton Airport – running manual systems
- Heathrow Airport – affected but flights operational – check with airline on latest journey information
- Bristol Airport – flights cancelled to Amsterdam
- Belfast International Airport – delays
- American Airlines – all flights cancelled
- United and Delta – no flights taking off
- Allegiant Air and Spirit Airlines – flights grounded
- Frontier and SunCountry – affected by outage
- San Francisco Airport – passengers reporting suspended flights
- Detroit Metro Airport – travellers sharing chaotic scenes of queues continuing to grow
- Mumbai Airport – check-in desks shut down for IndiGo, Akasa and Spice Jet flights
- Australian airline Qantas – flights grounded
- Schipol Airport in Amsterdam – flights to and from the Netherlands affected
- Spanish airport association AENA – reported issues at 42 airports
- Rome’s Fiumicino Airport affected
- Ibiza Airport – empty due to IT outage
- Hamburg Airport in Germany affected
- BER Berlin Airport – Long queues
- The Hague Airport in Rotterdam – travellers experiencing longer wait times
- Narita International Airport in Narita, east of Tokyo – check-in delays
- Palma Mallorca Airport affected
- Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok – longer queues reported
- Hong Kong Express Airways passengers delayed at Hong Kong International Airport
Television Networks
- Sky News – Friday morning breakfast show unable to air but now back on screens with reporter reading from printed notes
- Paramount Global channels including MTV, VH1, CMT and Pop TV – bumped offline.
Britain’s GPs
- The Wilmslow Health Centre in Cheshire – without access to their IT systems
- Solihull Healthcare Partnership in the West Midlands – affected ability to book/consult with patients this morning
- Central Lakes Medical Group in Ambleside – stated there has been a “big effect” and delays on the phone expected
- Pocklington Group Practice in the East Riding of Yorkshire – appointments needing to be cancelled and rearranged
- Hulme Hall Medical Group, in Stockport – unable to offer any appointments
- Windrush Medical Practice in Witney, Oxfordshire – continuing as normal for urgent enquiries but ask for routine concerns to wait until Monday
- Grimethorpe Surgery in Barnsley – no access to the clinical system, EMIS Web
- The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) confirmed the IT outage is disrupting community pharmacies
- A surgery in Putney, southwest London – Displaying an error message online to patients who attempt to book
Global hospitals
- Two German hospitals have been forced to cancel emergency operations
- The hospitals, in the northern German cities of Luebeck and Kiel, cancelled all elective operations scheduled for today
Supermarkets and restaurants
- Morrisons are affected
- Some Waitrose and Co-op are now cash only
- Gails and Waterstones experiencing some issues
- Wetherspoons pubs – only accepting cash
- Woolworths and Coles supermarkets in Australia – self service machines not working
Events
- Manchester United ticket release postponed – morning’s ticket release will be postponed until midday and website will remain unavailable
Banks and supermarkets in Australia including Beyond Bank Australia have also been experiencing issues this morning.
Various Microsoft services in Japan and New Zealand are also battling tech issues.