CNN
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More flight cancellations are expected through this weekend as airlines gradually recover from a global technology outage that left thousands of passengers stranded at airports.
According to FlightAware.com, more than 5,400 flights to, from and within the United States were canceled Friday and Saturday, and more than 21,300 flights were delayed. A third day of chaos could be in store at airports, with more than 600 flights already canceled as of Sunday morning.
The problem has spread beyond airports, with businesses, government agencies, health and emergency services, banks, schools and universities around the world being paralyzed or having their services disrupted due to a flawed software update for Microsoft Windows operating systems released by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, experts told CNN.
The outage “turned computers to bricks around the world,” Glenn Gerstell, a former senior counsel for the National Security Agency, told CNN on Saturday.
“This is probably going to be the most serious computer incident in terms of overall impact,” Gerstell said. “Maybe not in terms of the number of computers, but in terms of the impact on people’s lives.”
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz apologized to customers and said a fix had been deployed, but experts say getting systems back in order will be a lengthy process.
According to a Microsoft blog post Saturday, the outage affected about 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than 1 percent of all Windows machines. “While the percentage is small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services,” Microsoft said.
Major airlines said services were being restored but there could be further delays and disruption.
Most of United Airlines’ systems have recovered from Friday’s outage, the airline said in a statement. More than 400 United flights were canceled Saturday and more than 200 flights were canceled Sunday, according to FlightAware.com.
“While most of our systems have recovered from the global third-party software outage, we may continue to experience some disruptions to our operations, including flight delays and cancellations,” United said.
According to an update Saturday morning, Delta Air Lines is “continuing its operational recovery” after the outage prompted the airline to suspend flights Friday. Still, more than 1,000 Delta flights were canceled Saturday and more than 200 Sunday.
“Additional cancellations are expected as some Delta technology continues to recover from Friday morning’s vendor-caused issue,” the update said.
Delta has suspended travel for unaccompanied minors through Monday due to the outage, the airline announced over the weekend. Unaccompanied children who are already booked on Delta flights will not be able to travel, and the airline has asked that no new flights be booked for them.
American Airlines was also affected, saying in a statement Friday that “we have been able to safely restore operations” and that it “issued a travel waiver for our customers impacted by the vendor technology issue earlier this morning.” Allegiant Air said in a statement statement saturday that while “normal operations have resumed” after the outage, they are processing a backlog of customer messages and troubleshooting their programs and platforms.
Even if the faulty computer update has been rolled back, it’s not a quick fix for airlines, which have computers at thousands of gates that will need to be manually rebooted individually, David Kennedy, co-founder of cybersecurity firm Binary Defense, told CNN on Saturday.
“It’s not as simple as restarting. There are a lot more steps and complexities to consider,” Kennedy said. “There’s just not enough people in these airports, in these locations, to go and do it.”
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The U.S. Department of Transportation said Friday that the flight delays and cancellations resulting from the system outage were “controllable,” meaning they were “within the airline’s control.” In such cases, airlines “must uphold their customer service commitments.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a social media post Saturday that he had received reports that some airlines were only offering flight credits to passengers for canceled flights.
“Let’s be clear: You have the right to get your money back quickly if your flight is canceled and you don’t rebook,” Buttigieg said.
Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images
A passenger waits in the check-in area of Gatwick Airport as some flights are cancelled or delayed, in Horley, south of London, July 20, 2024.
Frustrated passengers are queuing at airports due to flight cancellations and delays, with some missing life events such as weddings, funerals and birthdays.
At Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, long lines of passengers waited for help Saturday, and many flights were still canceled or delayed.
Catalina Villareal, a Delta passenger, described the scene as: “Chaos. Frustration. Hunger.”
Villareal expressed frustration with what she sees as a lack of information from airlines.
“I had three cancellations. I checked in three times for all the flights. And now I have two bags somewhere… at the airport, and nobody knows how long they will take to arrive,” Villareal said. “So we were told to come tomorrow or Monday.”
Thousands of people face the same uncertainty as they crowd into airports across the country, waiting for answers.
“I was supposed to be in California for my mother’s wedding,” Richard Whitfield of Pasco County, Florida, told CNN Saturday. Whitfield and his partner, Jonathan Shade, left Tampa on Thursday and missed their connecting flight in Atlanta due to bad weather, which delayed their landing and forced the plane to refuel in Tallahassee.
After their rescheduled Friday flight was repeatedly delayed, the couple decided to cancel the trip and head home. But because no return flights were available to Tampa Friday night, they spent their second night at an airport hotel. They were unable to get a Delta discount voucher for either stay.
“Richard was put on hold for 24 hours,” Shade told CNN. “When he finally got through, it was 2001.”
Two hours later, Richard’s spot in Delta Air Lines’ virtual customer service queue was 2,300 people deep, Shade said.
Whitfield told CNN the whole ordeal has taken a toll on him.
“For me, it’s the domino effect that this has on humanity and everything we need to survive: food, sleep, water, shelter,” he said.
After spending 48 hours in Atlanta, they found a flight to Tampa on Saturday night, and they just hope it won’t be delayed or canceled. For now, the couple can’t do anything but wait and “have a good drink,” Shade and Whitfield said.
Another traveler at Boston Logan International Airport was trying to get to Fort Lauderdale for his father’s 96th birthday.
“My flight this morning was canceled. I was supposed to fly to Fort Lauderdale, so they rescheduled my flight to West Palm Beach and I got to the airport, it was canceled. They didn’t notify me, I didn’t get any notification, nothing,” Charlotte Yeh told CNN affiliate WFXT on Saturday.
Some passengers at the Boston airport were upset that their summer travel and plans had been thwarted.
“We had this trip to Las Vegas booked for quite some time,” Marc Forbes told WFXT. “Outright cancellation, the next possible flight was Monday at 6 p.m. and we were only supposed to be in Las Vegas for four nights, so this trip is going to have to be rescheduled.”
Carol Edwards said her flights on Friday and Saturday have been canceled and the next available flight is not scheduled until Monday.
“We have a lot of plans, you know, visiting family, eating, seeing friends, partying, you know everything, so we can’t do anything,” she told WFXT.