International IT outage hits UK’s transport, banking and broadcasting infrastructure

A major IT outage has affected airports, news organisations, train operators and other big companies across the globe.

Flights have been grounded in the US, Australia and Germany, while long queues of passengers are forming at UK terminals as they wait to be checked in by hand.

Several US carriers grounded flights, including United, American Airlines and Delta.

Train service information website National Rail Enquiries said there are ‘widespread IT issues across the entire network’.

Among the operators affected are Avanti West Coast, Great Western Railway, Southern and Thameslink.

GP surgeries have said they are unable to access patient records or book appointments.

Overnight, Microsoft confirmed it was investigating an issue with its services and apps, with the tech giant’s service health website warning of ‘service degradation’ that meant users may not be able to access many of the company’s most popular services, used by millions of business and people around the world.

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