The CrowdStrike outage wreaked havoc across many sectors of the global economy.
Airlines, railways, hospitals, television stations, sports clubs and financial systems were among the sectors hit by the technological problems, prompting national governments to call emergency meetings And stock markets will fall.
Journey
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has suspended operations due to the outage. About 110,000 commercial flights were scheduled to operate worldwide on Friday. As of 6 a.m. ET, nearly 1,400 of them had been canceled, according to reports.
U.S. airlines including Delta, United and American flights grounded due to communication problems, while Airports have descended into chaos and some tourists were hit with heavy loads to buy tickets for new flights after initial plans were cancelled.
Some rail transport has also been affected, including the metro in the US capital, Washington DC, experience delays. And the New York City subway system agency, the MTA, said “Some MTA customer information systems are temporarily offline due to a global technical outage,” it added. Train and bus service were not affected.
In the UK, Gatwick and Luton airports were affected by airline check-in systems. The largest commuter rail network, GTR, said its Thameslink and Southern trains were disrupted due to communications system failures. South Western Railway said all its ticket machines had stopped working. West Midlands Trains, Avanti West Coast, Great Western Railway and TransPennine Express were also affected.
Health
Patients have had important hospital appointments cancelled at the last minute in countries including United Kingdom, Germany and Israel – with the Royal Surrey NHS Trust in southern England reporting a critical incident and canceling radiotherapy appointments scheduled for Friday morning.
UK GP surgeries have said they are unable to access patient records or book appointments, as they have reported via social media that they are unable to access online systems. NHS hospitals and 999 services are understood to be unaffected by the outage.
Some hospitals in Germany and the Netherlands operations cancelledwhile others in Israel and the United States said they were also facing problems, often related to accessing electronic medical records.
In the United States, 911 emergency lines have been cut in parts of Alaska, and authorities have posted alternative phone numbers on social media. Similar problems have been reported in other states, including New Hampshire and Ohio.
Financial systems
The system failure threatened to leave people without their weekly and monthly wages as payroll systems crashed.
Melanie Pizzey, CEO of the Global Payroll Association, said: “We have already been contacted today by numerous customers who have been unable to access their payroll software due to the Microsoft outage and others who have been asked to log off with immediate effect.
“Depending on the duration of this outage, it could have serious consequences for businesses, especially those that process salaries on a weekly basis. Additionally, we may see a delay in processing salaries for the end of the coming month, which could delay the payment of employees’ monthly salaries.”
In the financial services sector, Metro Bank reported problems with its UK phone lines and Santander said card payments “may be affected”. Employees at US bank JP Morgan were unable to connect to their systems and the London Stock Exchange said there were problems with its information service.
Bloomberg TV reported that it had learned of hedge funds that were unable to process some trades and that “some people had to go home.”
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Retail
Retail payment systems also appear to have been hit by the systems failure, with some UK retailers erecting “cash only” signs.
A spokesperson for British supermarket Morrisons said there had been a few “isolated incidents” with payment systems during the morning, which were later resolved and the systems began to operate normally again.
Rival Waitrose said it was accepting contactless payments as usual, while continuing to process chip and PIN and cash payments. A spokesperson for the supermarket said it had been able to accept card payments throughout the day, but had been “briefly restricted in contactless payments”.
Payment systems at some branches of DIY store B&Q have also been affected, according to customer reports.
sport
In France, where the Olympic Games are due to begin next week, There have been reports of problems.
Games organisers said: “Paris 2024’s technical teams are fully mobilised to limit the impact and we have activated our contingency plans to ensure the continuation of our operations.”
A few Football clubs have also warned that their ticketing systems are under pressureScottish champions Celtic Glasgow have announced they are postponing ticket sales. In England, Manchester United have done the same.
Several French television channels have reportedly encountered technical problems, including difficulty displaying their weather graphics and maps.
In the UK, Sky News and CBBC were also temporarily off air, before resuming broadcasting.