The CrowdStrike outage wreaked havoc across a range of industries spanning the global economy.
Airlines, railways, hospitals, TV stations, sports clubs and financial systems were among the sectors hit by the technology glitches, prompting national governments to call emergency meetings and sending stock markets tumbling.
Travel
The US Federal Aviation Administration has halted operations due to the outage. About 110,000 commercial flights were scheduled worldwide on Friday. By 6 a.m. ET, nearly 1,400 were reportedly canceled.
US airlines including Delta, United and American canceled flights due to communication problems, while airports descended into chaos and some tourists were hit with hefty fees for purchasing tickets for new flights after cancellation of original plans.
Some rail traffic was also affected, with the subway system in the US capital, Washington DC, experiencing delays. And New York City’s subway system agency, the MTA, said “some MTA customer information systems are temporarily offline due to a worldwide technical outage.” It added that train and bus services remained unaffected.
In the UK, Gatwick and Luton airports were among the hubs where airline check-in systems were hit, while the largest commuter rail network GTR said its Thameslink and Southern trains were disrupted due to a failure in communications systems. South Western Railway said all its ticket machines had stopped working and West Midlands Trains, Avanti West Coast, Great Western Railway and TransPennine Express were also affected.
Health
Patients had vital appointments canceled at the last minute at hospitals in countries including the UK, Germany and Israel – with Royal Surrey NHS trust in the south of England declaring a critical incident and radiotherapy appointments scheduled for Friday morning cancelled.
Doctors’ surgeries in the UK said they were unable to access patient records or book appointments after reporting on social media that they could not access online systems. It is understood that NHS hospitals and 999 services are not affected by the outage.
Some hospitals in Germany and the Netherlands canceled operations, while others in Israel and the US said they were also experiencing problems, often related to access to electronic medical records.
In the US, 911 emergency lines were down in parts of Alaska and officials posted alternative phone numbers on social media. Similar problems have been reported in other states, including New Hampshire and Ohio.
Financial systems
Systems failure threatened to leave people without their weekly wages and monthly salaries as payroll systems were seized.
Melanie Pizzey, CEO of the Global Payroll Association, says: “Already today we have been contacted by many clients who have been unable to access their payroll software due to the Microsoft outage and others who have been asked to opt out with immediate effect.
“Depending on the length of this outage, this could have very serious consequences for businesses, particularly those that process payroll on a weekly basis. In addition, we may have experienced delays in processing payroll for the end of the upcoming month, which may delay employees receiving their monthly wages.”
In financial services, Metro Bank reported problems with its UK phone lines and Santander said card payments “may be affected”. Staff at US bank JP Morgan were unable to log into their systems and the London Stock Exchange said there were problems with its intelligence service.
Bloomberg TV said it was aware of hedge funds that were unable to process certain trades and that “some people had to go home”.
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Retail
The system failure also appears to have affected retail payment systems, with some shopkeepers in the UK erecting “cash only” signs.
A spokesman for UK supermarket Morrisons said there were some “isolated incidents” with payment systems during the morning, which were later resolved with the systems returning to normal operation.
Its rival Waitrose said it was largely taking contactless payments as normal, as well as still processing chip and pin and cash payments. A spokesman for the supermarket said it was able to accept card payments throughout the day but was “briefly limited to contactless payments”.
According to customer reports, payment systems at some branches of homeware store B&Q were also affected.
Sport
There have been reports of trouble in France, where the Olympics are due to start next week.
Games organizers said: “Paris 2024 technical teams are fully mobilized to limit the impact and we have activated our contingency plans to ensure our operations continue.”
Several football clubs have also warned that their ticketing systems are under pressure, with reigning Scottish champions Celtic announcing they are delaying ticket sales. In England, Manchester United did the same.
Several French TV channels reportedly had technical problems, including problems displaying their graphics and weather maps.
In the UK, Sky News and CBBC were also temporarily off air before resuming transmission.