Air travel hit by global cyber outage
By Andrew Mills, Joanna Plucinska and Lisa Barrington
EDINBURGH/LONDON/SEOUL, July 19 (Reuters) -Air passengers around the world faced delays, cancellations and problems checking in as airports and airlines were caught up in a massive IT outage that also affected industries ranging from banks to media companies.
In Edinburgh, a Reuters witness said boarding pass scanners carried a "server offline message", with the airport saying passengers shouldn't travel to the airport without checking their flight status online first.
Elsewhere, airports and airlines advised customers to arrive earlier than normal for flights. Analysts said the outage was likely tied to a glitch in Microsoft software used globally.
Microsoft MSFT.O said users might be unable to access various Office 365 apps and services due to a "configuration change in a portion of our Azure-backed workloads".
Hong Kong International Airport said a Microsoft outage was affecting several airlines and it had switched to manual check-in, but flight operations had not been affected.
Singapore's Changi airport also said check-ins were being handled manually.
According to an alert sent by Crowdstrike to its clients and reviewed by Reuters, the company's "Falcon Sensor" software is causing Microsoft Windows to crash and display a blue screen, known informally as the "Blue Screen of Death".
The alert, sent at 0530 GMT on Friday, also shared a manual workaround to rectify the issue. A Crowdstrike spokesperson did not respond to emails or calls requesting comment.
The aviation sector is hit particularly hard due to its sensitivity to timings. Airlines rely on a closely coordinated schedule often run by air traffic control. Just one delay of a few minutes can throw off a flight schedule for take-offs and landings for an airport and airline for the rest of the day.
Airlines across the United States, Asia and Europe, including major carriers such as Ryanair RYA.I, Delta and Air India, said they had either faced delays or disruption.
Several U.S. carriers including American Airlines AAL.O, United Airlines UAL.O and Delta Airlines issued ground stops for all their flights early on Friday due to communication problems, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.
In Europe, Schiphol airport, Berlin airport, London Gatwick, Edinburgh airport and others said they were impacted by the outage.
"We expect longer waiting times and some flight cancellations. Not all airports in Europe were impacted as the issue is linked with a specific OS, Microsoft Azure," said Agata Lyznik, a spokesperson for airports group ACI Europe.
Some airlines said they were already back online, with Spanish carrier Iberia saying it had managed to avoid flight cancellations.
"From 9:25 a.m. onwards the electronic check-in counters and online check-ins were reactivated. There have been some delays," a spokesperson said.
Reporting by Reuters bureaux, James Pearson in London; Writing by Joanna Plucinska; Editing by Mark Potter
면책조항: XM Group 회사는 체결 전용 서비스와 온라인 거래 플랫폼에 대한 접근을 제공하여, 개인이 웹사이트에서 또는 웹사이트를 통해 이용 가능한 콘텐츠를 보거나 사용할 수 있도록 허용합니다. 이에 대해 변경하거나 확장할 의도는 없습니다. 이러한 접근 및 사용에는 다음 사항이 항상 적용됩니다: (i) 이용 약관, (ii) 위험 경고, (iii) 완전 면책조항. 따라서, 이러한 콘텐츠는 일반적인 정보에 불과합니다. 특히, 온라인 거래 플랫폼의 콘텐츠는 금융 시장에서의 거래에 대한 권유나 제안이 아닙니다. 금융 시장에서의 거래는 자본에 상당한 위험을 수반합니다.
온라인 거래 플랫폼에 공개된 모든 자료는 교육/정보 목적으로만 제공되며, 금융, 투자세 또는 거래 조언 및 권고, 거래 가격 기록, 금융 상품 또는 원치 않는 금융 프로모션의 거래 제안 또는 권유를 포함하지 않으며, 포함해서도 안됩니다.
이 웹사이트에 포함된 모든 의견, 뉴스, 리서치, 분석, 가격, 기타 정보 또는 제3자 사이트에 대한 링크와 같이 XM이 준비하는 콘텐츠 뿐만 아니라, 제3자 콘텐츠는 일반 시장 논평으로서 "현재" 기준으로 제공되며, 투자 조언으로 여겨지지 않습니다. 모든 콘텐츠가 투자 리서치로 해석되는 경우, 투자 리서치의 독립성을 촉진하기 위해 고안된 법적 요건에 따라 콘텐츠가 의도되지 않았으며, 준비되지 않았다는 점을 인지하고 동의해야 합니다. 따라서, 관련 법률 및 규정에 따른 마케팅 커뮤니케이션이라고 간주됩니다. 여기에서 접근할 수 있는 앞서 언급한 정보에 대한 비독립 투자 리서치 및 위험 경고 알림을 읽고, 이해하시기 바랍니다.
