IT outage wreaks havoc on airlines, banks, media outlets worldwide

Computer issues were causing major disruption worldwide on Friday, affecting airlines and airports, media outlets, banks and telecommunication companies.

Airports from Berlin and Zurich to New Delhi and Sydney were among those that reported various degrees of service disruptions, caused by an update from IT security company — CrowdStrike.

CrowdStrike boss, George Kurtz, posted on social media platform X that “this is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”

A spokesperson for software giant, Microsoft, said that the company was “aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform.

“We anticipate a resolution is forthcoming.”

Airports also reported major disruption, as passengers across the world have been asked to check the status of their flights, with many airlines reporting difficulties with check-in.

In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration has stopped flights by major airlines such as United, American and Delta.

The European budget airlines, Ryanair and Eurowings, also had their operations disrupted, although German carrier, Lufthansa, said it was only “slightly” impacted.

Also, Dutch airline, KLM, said “the outage made flight handling impossible” and was largely suspending its operations.

Zurich Airport said it would restrict landings, although arriving flights that have already taken off were still able to land.

Turkey’s national flag carrier, Turkish Airlines, said it was currently experiencing problems with ticketing, check-in and reservation processes in a post on social media platform — X.

At Sydney Airport, passengers were told that they could not check in luggage, with domestic and international flights affected.

In India, boarding passes were being filled out manually as check-in was disrupted at New Delhi’s main airport.

Contingency plans were also in place at Heathrow Airport in London, the airport said, with Gatwick Airport also warning against delays.

Broadcasters and healthcare sectors were also affected

The global IT outage has caused difficulties across a wide range of sectors on Friday.

In the UK, broadcaster Sky News was knocked off the air for hours, while several television channels in France were also affected.

Australian radio stations were reportedly broadcasting music via CDs and USB sticks after computer systems went down.

Emergency services were hit in Denmark, with the Copenhagen fire department reporting problems with receiving automatic fire alarm warnings.

The healthcare sector in Denmark has also been affected.

In northern Germany, the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein said it was cancelling all planned operations at its facilities in the cities of Kiel and Lübeck were affected.

Australian banks were also said to be struggling to deal with the IT outage. In response, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese convened an emergency meeting.