Microsoft outage: The global Microsoft outage brought a halt on the crucial aspects of human life – flights, banking and media – on Friday (July 19) and some of it persisted on Saturday as flights were delayed on various airports across India. Travellers faced troubles at several airports with flights getting delayed. The outage spread globally yesterday morning after an update from global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike struck down Microsoft Windows PCs offline.
Union Ministry of Civil Aviation, however, issued a statement on Saturday stating that the airline systems across airports have started working "normally" since 3 am.
"Since 3 AM, Airline systems across airports have started working normally. Flight operations are going smoothly now. There is a backlog because of disruptions yesterday, and it is getting cleared gradually. By noon today, we expect all issues to be resolved," Ministry of Civil Aviation said in the release.
Airports where people faced problems due to outage:
- Chennai International Airport
- Delhi Airport
- Mumbai Airport
What did the passengers say?
Passengers waited in a queue outside Chennai airport as flight services remain affected due to the blue screen error for the second day today. At least 16 flights were cancelled, and 30 others were delayed for several hours.
A passenger named Prabakaran who came to catch a flight to the Maldives said he is clueless about where to stay.
"From tomorrow (Sunday), my work permit gets over, so I am in a must-go situation to go to the Maldives today (Saturday), but due to the cancelled flight, I have been asked to go tomorrow. I am clueless about where to stay and about job assurance," he said.
Another passenger at Chennai International Airport said, "I am a medical doctor from Sri Lanka. I was to go to Bhubaneswar to give a lecture, but yesterday night my flight got cancelled. Then today morning, I couldn't find a flight back to Bhubaneswar. So I'm going back to Sri Lanka, but now I cannot get a flight, so I'm stuck here."
Passengers had to bear the brunt of the outage that still persists.
“I am travelling to London and my flight is delayed by half an hour at least. There is a long queue outside the airport. Most of the flights are delayed,” a passenger said at the Delhi airport.
A passenger at Delhi's IGI airport said, "I am going to Dubai via Hyderabad. I have an online ticket, we tried to get the boarding pass but the machine is not working. Will try to get it manually..."
A traveller from the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport said that they have not been able to take rest for the whole night due to the delay in flight operations.
“I was travelling from Mumbai to Bengaluru yesterday. The flight got cancelled...Although we were provided with the service, but they did not accommodate us...We have not slept for the whole night..." he said.
Microsoft outage
Microsoft Windows users were experiencing the "Blue Screen of Death" error that caused their computers to shut down or restart.
Services across multiple sectors were affected worldwide on Friday due to a technical problem at the US-based Microsoft and American cyber security company Crowdstrike. Meanwhile, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has issued an advisory, CIAD-2024-0035, addressing the severe outage impacting Microsoft Windows systems.
(With inputs from agencies)
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