By M.Saraswathi & Durratul Ain Ahmad Fuad
KUALA LUMPUR, July 19 (Bernama) -- A global information technology (IT) outage has sent the operations of airports and airlines globally into disarray with some airports such as that in Berlin announcing complete suspension all flights, while on the home front, some airlines are reporting disruptions to their check-in and reservations systems.
At the time of reporting, it is understood that besides airports and airlines, stock exchanges, rail companies, media companies and banks were also affected.
Crowdstrike, a US cybersecurity company, earlier admitted to being responsible for the error due to a programming.
Subsequently, its president and chief executive officer George Kurtz said CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.
“This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,” he said in a statement posted on LinkedIn.
According to reports, American Airlines, United and Delta have asked the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for global ground stop on all flights.
The FAA said it is closely monitoring a technical issue impacting IT systems at US airlines and confirmed that several airlines have requested its assistance with ground stops until the issue is resolved.
Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd said its network of airports in Malaysia remains unaffected by the global Microsoft outage.
“However, some of our airline partners are experiencing disruptions due to this issue,” it said.
“Terkini!!! Semua sistem Check In (Online, Kiosks) penerbangan #AirAsia mengalami gangguan teknikal,” Syahrul Azlan said via his X account @syahrulazlan91.
(“Breaking news!!! All check-in systems (online, kiosks) #AirAsia flights experiencing technical disruption.”)
“So yang mana ada penerbangan dalam masa terdekat, sila datang awal ke KLIA (T2). Yang mana belum ada boarding pass atau nak drop bagasi, wajib beratur di kaunter,” he advised.
(“So, those who have flights soon, please arrive early at KLIA (T2). Those without boarding passes or want to drop off baggage will have to queue at the counters.”)
Akshay Kothari, via his @akothari X handle, stated that: “The Microsoft/ CrowdStrike outage has taken down most airports in India.”
“I got my first hand-written boarding pass today,” he posted on X along with a picture of his handwritten Indigo Airlines’ boarding pass.
Ron Jeremy said FlyFrontier, an airline headquartered in Denver, Colorado, has completely shut down and cancelled flights.
“In a few hours you should receive an email about your options. All because of a Microsoft product this whole airline cannot stand on its own. Their workers cannot access a single piece of their system and have zero options,” he said on X.
Andrew A. Michta, director of the Scowcroft Strategy Initiative, said on the X platform that he was stuck at the airport in Athens.
“We are told all Microsoft networks US airlines are down. They can’t generate a flight plan, they can’t do anything. Just got a message from a friend that banking networks are down in his country which is in Europe. Tell me this is not a cyber attack,” he said.
One of the world’s busiest airports in the world, London’s Heathrow Airport, said the global outage only impacted select systems at Heathrow while flights were operational and it is implementing contingency plans to minimise any impact on journeys.
Heathrow Airport has advised passengers to check with airlines for the latest flight information.
Back home, the National Cyber Security Agency (NACSA), Malaysia said that it observed operational disruptions in key areas in the country.
“For instance, operations at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) Terminal 2 have been affected, leading to manual check-ins and extended waiting times. Similarly, banks have faced system outages that have disrupted transactions and customer services.”
The impact of this outage in Malaysia is considerable, NACSA said.
“It has caused delays and operational challenges across multiple sectors, affecting both businesses and the public. We are actively monitoring the situation and working closely with relevant stakeholders to mitigate the impact and restore normal operations as swiftly as possible.”
-- BERNAMA
