Travel plans are being disrupted following a mass outage that’s also impacting banks, media companies, and telecommunications.
19 July 2024
This morning (Friday 19 July), mass IT outages are being reported that appear to be impacting flight schedules and train departures, as well as banks and media. More than 1,000 flights globally have been cancelled this morning.
Just before 8 am, the first global reports of outages broke on BBC News. Flights have been suspended from Sydney to Edinburgh, while train companies such as Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express, and Great Northern have posted that the outages mean that services will be affected.
Thanks to the outages, which are being investigated, banks, telecommunications groups, and media companies such as Sky News have been left with major issues.
How are flights being impacted by the outages?
Many airlines such as Ryanair and United Airlines have reported issues due to the ongoing problems this morning. By lunchtime on Friday, progress was being made and flights were still taking off, but check-in at many UK airports was still a manual process.
United, Delta, and American Airlines – three major US-based airlines – put a “global ground stop” in place on all their flights. Later in the morning, American Airlines reported that their flights were back up and running.
In the UK, Ryanair has warned of “potential disruptions across the network.” At Stansted Airport, while there are long queues and issues with some retail payment services, flights are operating as expected. At Gatwick, barcodes are not working, so security checks on boarding passes are being done manually. At Belfast Airport, departure boards have gone down, and staff are using whiteboards to keep passengers updated.
In Europe, Dutch airline KLM says flight handling was “impossible.” Lufthansa and SAS Airlines have also reported disruption.
Airports in Tokyo, Sydney, and New Delhi have reported disruptions.
How are trains being impacted by the outages?
Govia Thameslink Railway – the parent company of Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express, and Great Northern – is one of the train companies to report disruption. On social media, the team posted: “We are currently experiencing widespread IT issues across our entire network. Our IT teams are actively investigating to determine the root cause of the problem. We are unable to access driver diagrams at certain locations, leading to potential short-notice cancellations, particularly on the Thameslink and Great Northern networks. Additionally, other key systems, including our real-time customer information platforms, are also affected. We will provide additional updates when we can. In the meantime, please regularly check your journey before you travel.”
What has caused the outages?
It’s unclear at the time of writing. Reports have suggested that the issue stems from cybersecurity company Crowdstrike, which issued a software update that might have gone wrong, causing these widespread issues. American Airlines, the world’s biggest airline, has publicly blamed Crowdstrike.
This is an evolving news story and will be updated as we get more information.
