“So when airlines talk about a seamless global passenger experience, it means they all use a common IT system for key functions. The vulnerability (or lack of resilience) of that strategy is on full display here.” -Jon Ostrower
A software glitch has forced the delay or cancelation of thousands of flights and impacted a wide range of worldwide commerce.
Software Glitch Disrupts Flights Worldwide
I woke up this morning in the US to several alerts on my phone:
CrowdStrike, a US cybersecurity company, is behind the issue (which it says is not cybersecurity-related…):
“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”
But the reliance on this software and the interdependence of various systems has led to a cascading effect of flight delays and cancellations that will only get worse today as the day progresses.
In the US, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines all issued temporary ground stops and have only recently begun to resume flights:
We’re aware of a technology issue with a vendor that is impacting multiple carriers. American is working with the vendor to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.— americanair (@AmericanAir) July 19, 2024
Delta has paused its global flight schedule this morning due to a vendor technology issue that is impacting several airlines and businesses around the world. We are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible to resume operations.
— Delta News Hub (@DeltaNewsHub) July 19, 2024
A third-party outage is impacting computer systems, including at United and many other organizations worldwide.
As we work to fully restore these systems, some flights are resuming. Many customers traveling today may experience delays.
We have issued a waiver to make it easier…
— United Airlines (@united) July 19, 2024
In Europe, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has warned customers to stay away:
Update 12:30.
KLM has announced that limited air traffic is currently possible, following a global computer outage affecting airlines, airports and others. Customers should expect delays and cancellations. We urge passengers to stay away from the airport if their flight is not… https://t.co/kWtzXF1RhE— KLM (@KLM) July 19, 2024
Check your flight status before heading to the airport. Most carriers have issued travel waivers so if your plans are flexible, you can rebook over the weekend at no additional charge.
Delays tend to have a cascading effect on airlines, so if your flight is not delayed yet, keep in mind that it might be delayed later in the day.
I’ll be monitoring FlightAwarehttps://www.flightaware.com/live/cancelled/ for updates. As of 7:00 am ET:
- Total delays today: 19,634
- Total delays within, into, or out of the United States today: 1,731
- Total cancellations today: 1,737
- Total cancellations within, into, or out of the United States today: 1,011
This is a developing story.
image: Twitter
Wow ! Look at all the enormous carry-ons in the photo .
And , there is a fellow with his mobile patiently waiting “on hold” .
We experienced this at around 1130pm CST at our Health system. Thankfully we still had working units that were not affected so essential patient care. It took about 6 hrs to come back up. Our IT department had to fix each unit.
@Alex … When I wait in hospital , I first request food . Last time I did so , I received a small bowl of chopped bread which was called a “small bite diet” . When hospital later asked me for evaluation , I complained it was a fiasco .
Who cares about your food order?
People crying on X that they are missing their cruises because of the delays and cancellations. Their fault for not allowing for travel issues, but then again they booked a cruise, so not exactly our best and brightest.
The software system went down , because too many searches for cruises overloaded the system .
Greta might actually be cheerful today.
Almost flew home today but decided to impulsively change my ticket to explore Amsterdam this weekend. Do not regret it at all.
@Malik … What did you find ?
Went to my usual dinner spot with some colleagues at The White Room after taking it easy today. Someone I know works in upper middle management at Ajax FC so I’ll get an inside look into the historic “voetbal” club tomorrow.
Maybe it’s just me. But if I’m in a situation like that in the picture, I get the hell out of there and get a room or go somewhere else until the dust settles.
@David … That photo would be a normal terminal in some places .
CrowdStrike is an absolutely horrible product. Several years ago it flagged a file I downloaded at work (previous job I’m no longer there) as a virus which caused all of my accounts (Gmail, Slack Zendesk etc) to be locked. Since I was working remotely from another office which didn’t have a replacement computer, I was basically SOL for three days until corporate could ship me another. I ran the file through virustotal.com which came back clean.
This is just the beginning. “Tech” creates the tools of tyranny and control.
If you want to be really disheartened, read general public responses about how “inconvenienced” people were at having to place their Starbucks orders in person, and demanding compensation. Dehumanizing tech will destroy humanity.
One of the major downsides of there being too much market concentration/power with a tech company is that this kind of issue of widespread outages at the same time becomes much, much more likely than when the market power of a company/product is weaker and faces a lot of competition.
When so many players are using Crowdstrike or CloudFlare as part of keeping their critical operations up and running, this kind of cross-firm and cross-industry blunder is more likely and more impactful than it would be. But then there are the benefits of economies of scale to also factor in, especially when the main driver of business is to run up the revenues and earnings as much as is allowed by the authorities and the market environment as a whole.
Just tell AI to fix everything. Oh wait, doesn’t AI operate in the cloud too? Carbon paper futures are on the rise. Lol.
The critical risk failures with IT and the ability to quickly recover from them will get much worse over time.
It’s going to be all the more interesting when the “fix” is “AI” and “AI is on it”.