A global outage of cybersecurity software CrowdStrike on Friday wreaked havoc across multiple sectors, notably disrupting air travel and leaving thousands of passengers stranded. The outage resulted in the cancellation of approximately 46,000 flights worldwide, according to a report by The Washington Post.
Delta Airlines was hit particularly hard, canceling about 1,200 flights on Friday. Other major airlines also felt the impact, with United canceling 649 flights, American 408, and Southwest 234. The chaos extended into the weekend, with Delta canceling an additional 1,300 flights on Sunday and another 600 on Monday.
In a blog post on Delta’s website, CEO Ed Bastian revealed that the outage forced the airline to cancel over 3,500 flights through Saturday, bringing the total number of canceled flights to more than 5,000. Bastian noted that the incident occurred during one of the busiest travel weekends of the year, with passenger loads exceeding 90%, severely limiting the airline’s ability to rebook passengers. He added:
“Specifically, the issue impacted the Microsoft Windows operating system. Delta has a significant number of applications that use that system, and in particular, one of our crew tracking-related tools was affected and unable to effectively process the unprecedented number of changes triggered by the system shutdown. Our teams have been working around the clock to recover and restore full functionality.”
While most airlines struggled over the weekend, Southwest Airlines emerged relatively unscathed. A spokesperson for the budget carrier told Forbes, “The outage did not directly affect our operations, but we encourage customers to check their flight status throughout the day while the overall aviation system continues to recover.”
