A mass global outage has caused widespread disruptions across various industries, including banking, airlines, telecommunications, TV and radio broadcasting, and supermarkets. The extensive IT issues have taken numerous businesses offline, significantly impacting operations in multiple countries.
Major US airlines, including American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United Airlines, have grounded flights. Airports in Germany and Spain have also reported significant issues. At Edinburgh Airport, passengers were unable to use automated boarding pass scanners, and security monitors displayed “server offline” messages. According to a Reuters witness, the airport resorted to manual boarding pass checks.
In the UK, several train services, including Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express, and Great Northern—under the Govia Thameslink Railway umbrella—reported widespread IT problems. The company stated, “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.”
The outage coincides with Microsoft’s ongoing efforts to address the “lingering impact” on its 365 applications and services, which are currently in a “degraded state.” It remains unclear whether the issues affecting airports and train services globally are related to Microsoft’s problems. The tech giant stated that the outage started around 6 p.m. ET on Thursday, affecting multiple Azure services in the Central US region.
The disruption has also affected Windows PCs worldwide, including at Sky News in the UK, which was unable to broadcast live TV on Friday morning. Users on the subreddit for the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike reported issues in India, the United States, and New Zealand. In Australia, users reported being locked out of their workstations early on Friday.
Major US carriers, including American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and Allegiant Air, issued ground stops on Friday morning due to communication issues, shortly after Microsoft resolved its cloud services outage. It was not immediately clear whether the decision to keep flights grounded was related to the earlier Microsoft outage. US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg stated that the department was monitoring flight cancellations and delays at Frontier Airlines, emphasizing the agency’s commitment to holding airlines accountable for meeting passenger needs.
Allegiant Air reported its website was unavailable due to the Microsoft Azure issue, according to a statement to CNN. Frontier Airlines canceled 147 flights and delayed 212 others on Thursday, according to data tracker FlightAware. Allegiant and Sun Country also reported significant delays, with 45% and 23% of their flights affected, respectively.
The full extent and cause of the global outage are still under investigation, as businesses and service providers work to restore normal operations.