Global cyber outage grounds flights and halts news broadcasts

CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity giant serving a number of global industries, suffered a significant outage this morning, causing disruptions across the globe. This unforeseen technical glitch halted news broadcasts and grounded flights, creating chaos for travellers and media outlets alike. There were no reports of any Thai airports affected.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States reported that three major airlines (American, United, and Delta) were forced to ground all flights. This sudden standstill left thousands of passengers stranded and airports in disarray.

In Australia, the New South Wales Police Force took to social media to acknowledge the widespread system outage. Sydney Airport, one of the country’s largest and busiest transportation hubs, faced significant issues just as the weekend rush was beginning.

“A global technical outage has impacted some plane operations and terminal services. Flights are currently arriving and departing, however, there may be some delays throughout the evening.”

The airport activated its contingency plan, deploying additional staff to manage the chaos and assist passengers.

In a statement to the BBC, United Airlines, the world’s fifth biggest carrier by passenger numbers, reported that while the airline worked to restore computer systems, it is holding all aircraft at their departure airports. Flights already airborne are continuing to their destinations.

According to the BBC, Poland’s largest container terminal, the Baltic Hub in Gdansk, is grappling with a global Microsoft operating system outage, disrupting operations. The hub, operational since 2007 and capable of handling up to 2.9 million containers annually, has requested companies refrain from sending containers to the port.

German airline Lufthansa and Scandinavian-based SAS report disruptions. Lufthansa’s booking retrieval is currently limited, but a solution is in progress. SAS’s booking engine is affected by technical issues. Prague Airport faces check-in system outages, causing delays. Eurowings’ online check-in is down, and Zurich Airport has halted landings. Belfast International Airport is impacted but operational.

Despite the widespread impact, CrowdStrike representatives remained silent, offering no comment on the situation. This outage follows closely on the heels of Frontier Airlines’ brief grounding of flights yesterday evening due to a major outage in Microsoft networks. The disruption affected several low-cost carriers, including Allegiant Air and Sun Country Airlines.

Microsoft revealed that the issue had impacted multiple systems for customers in the central United States, adding to the growing concerns about the vulnerability of digital infrastructure in the aviation industry, reported Bangkok Post.