Flights, hospitals and Olympics: How the tech outage is impacting global operations

A global technology outage affecting Microsoft grounded flights, took broadcasters off the air and even had “limited” impacts on the Paris Olympics early Friday.

The outage has been attributed to a “defect” in a software update from the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which said shortly before 6 a.m. EDT the issue had been “identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.” 

“The underlying cause has been fixed, however, residual impact is continuing to affect some Microsoft 365 apps and services,” Microsoft said in a post on the social platform X. “We’re conducting additional mitigations to provide relief.” 

Here’s how businesses around the world have been impacted by the outage: 

Flights 

The outage has wreaked havoc on airports globally. More than 3,000 flights have been cancelled, and more than 27,000 have been delayed, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware. 

American, Delta and United Airlines halted flights early Friday morning due to the issue.  

All three major U.S. carriers had resumed some operations by mid-morning. American said in a post on X that it had been able to “safely re-establish our operation” as of 5 a.m.

Around 6:30 a.m., United said on X that some flights were resuming as it worked to fully restore its systems and warned that customers traveling Friday “may experience delays.” Shortly before 8 a.m., Delta said it had “resumed some flight departures.”

Hospitals

Mass General Brigham, a Boston-based health system, has canceled all non-urgent visits at its hospitals and clinics Friday. 

“A major worldwide software outage has affected many of our systems today,” it said in a note on its website. “This means we are not able to access our clinical systems, including patient heath records and scheduling.” 

“We are open for urgent appointments and procedures, and our emergency rooms remain open,” it added. 

The National Health Service (NHS) in England said the outage had caused an issue with an appointment and patient record system, leading to disruptions in “the majority of GP practices.” 

“The NHS has long standing measures in place to manage the disruption, including using paper patient records and handwritten prescriptions, and the usual phone systems to contact your GP,” it said in a statement. 

Staff in some NHS hospitals are also “having to work manually from paper to manage certain tasks” due to issues with administrative systems, the health system said. However, it noted that “care is continuing as normal” in most hospitals. 

Broadcasters 

The British news channel Sky News was unable to broadcast live Friday morning due to the outage. 

“Much of our news report is still available online, and we are working hard to restore all services,” David Rhodes, the executive chairman of Sky News Group, wrote on X around 7 a.m. local time in the U.K.

About an hour later, Rhodes said Sky News was “back live on TV without full capabilities.” 

Trains 

Metrorail in Washington, D.C., said in a post on X around 5 a.m. EDT that it had been “affected by a known issue impacting computer systems across the globe,” causing its website and some internal systems to go down. 

It warned customers that the start of train service was delayed systemwide and that bus service times could also be delayed. However, by 6 a.m., Metrorail said that all stations had opened on time and that service was running as scheduled. 

New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) said in a note on its website that “customer information systems are temporarily offline” due to the outage, but train and bus service is unaffected. 

Olympics 

The Paris Olympics organizing committee said the outage had “limited” impacts on the event, one week before the opening ceremony.  

The outage has not impacted ticketing systems but is having an impact on delivering accreditations.  

“At this point, the impacts are limited and concern in particular the delivery of uniforms and accreditations. Our teams have been fully mobilised to ensure the continuity of operations at optimum levels,” the committee said in a statement.  

Sky Sports New Zealand journalist Wilson Catton said he was unable to get his accreditation validated when he arrived in Paris on Friday, Reuters reported.  

“They can’t issue any accreditation or anything for I don’t know how long,” he said, according to Reuters.  

Other operations around preparing venues is continuing as normal, the committee said.  

Although organizers said the technical issue has also not affected the Paris Olympics partner Aéroports de Paris, the arrival of some delegations have been impacted by delays to their flights, according to the committee.  

“The Paris 2024 teams remain present at the airports and in the Olympic Village to welcome the delegations in the best possible conditions,” the committee said.  

The Torch Relay will continue its route “as normal” and will be taking place Friday in the Val D’Oise.  

Emergency services 

Emergency services went down in several places across the U.S. due to the outage. 

Alaska state troopers said in a Facebook post at around 2:30 a.m. that “many 911 and non-emergency call centers are not working correctly across the State of Alaska.” 

They listed several phone numbers that Alaskans could use instead of 911 in the case of an emergency. By about 4:30 a.m., “911 was back up and running,” according to an update. 

The Phoenix Police Department said in a post on X at around 5 a.m. that the outage was impacting its computerized 911 dispatch center. 

“Our 911 center remains operational,” it said. “If you need to call 911, stay on the line if you are put on a brief hold. City IT is working diligently to find a workaround until the outage has been restored.” 

Systems are now back up and running, the police department said in a new post shortly before 9 a.m. 

Governments 

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) issued an emergency declaration early Friday morning, after the Microsoft outage impacted some of the city’s computers and servers, including the Bureau of Emergency Communication Computer Aided Dispatch system.

“After briefly switching to manual call-taking, the CAD system is back up and running as of 6 a.m. Friday,” a city press release said. “At no time was the community’s ability to make 911 calls impacted.”

The Maricopa County Elections Department in Arizona is also “experiencing an outage at some voting locations,” it said in a post on X around 11 a.m. Early voting in Arizona’s primaries began July 3 and continues through Election Day on July 30. 

The Social Security Administration closed its local offices on Friday due to the outage. 

“Our phone line remains open and many online services at ssa.gov remain available,” the agency said in a note on its website. “We appreciate your patience while we work to restore services as quickly as possible.”

Updated at 2:31 p.m. EDT