More flight cancellations expected as airlines gradually recover from global technology outage

CNN
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More flight cancellations are expected this weekend as airlines gradually recover from Global Technology Blackout Which led to thousands of travelers being stranded at airports.

More than 5,400 flights to, from or within the United States were canceled Friday and Saturday and more than 21,300 flights were delayed, according to FlightAware.comAirports are expected to see a third day of chaos with more than 600 flights cancelled on Sunday morning.

the problem Extending beyond airportsWith businesses, government agencies, health and emergency services, banks, schools and universities across the world shutting down or having services cut off due to Software update is faulty For Microsoft Windows operating systems released by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, Experts told CNN:.

“The outage turned computers around the world into wreckage,” Glenn Gerstel, former general counsel of the National Security Agency, told CNN on Saturday.

“This is likely to be the single largest computer incident in terms of overall impact,” Gerstel said. “It’s probably not the number of computers, it’s the impact on people’s lives.”

CrowdStrike CEO, George Kurtz I apologize To customers they said a fix has been posted, but Experts say The process of restoring systems to normal will be long-term.

The outage affected an estimated 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than 1% of all Windows devices, according to Saturday’s blog “While the percentage was small, the broad economic and social impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by companies that run many critical services,” Microsoft said.

Major airlines said services were returning to normal, but there could be more delays and disruptions.

Most of United Airlines’ systems have recovered from the outage that occurred on Friday, the airline said. He 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 worldwide third-party software outage, we may continue to experience some disruption to our operations, including flight delays and cancellations,” United said.

Delta Air Lines is continuing its “operational recovery” after the outage prompted the airline to ground its flights on Friday, according to a news release issued Saturday. morning However, more than 1,000 Delta flights were canceled on Saturday and more than 200 on Sunday.

“Additional cancellations are expected as some Delta technologies continue to recover from the vendor issue Friday morning,” the update said.

Delta has suspended flights for unaccompanied minors through Monday due to a service outage, the airline said. Advertise Over the weekend, unaccompanied children already booked on a Delta flight 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: statement Allegiant Air announced Friday that it was “able to safely restart operations” and that it had “issued a travel waiver for our customers impacted by the vendor technology issue earlier this morning.” Saturday statement Although normal operations have resumed after the outage, they are processing a backlog of customer messages and troubleshooting and fixing bugs in their software and platforms.

even with The faulty computer update has been rolled back.This is 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 just about restarting. There are a lot of steps and complexities involved in that process,” Kennedy said. “There aren’t enough people at those airports and at those locations to do that job.”

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the US Department of Transportation British Airways said on Friday it had determined that flight delays and cancellations caused by the outage were “controllable,” meaning they were “attributable to the airline.” In such cases, airlines must “adhere to their policies.” Customer service commitments.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in a social media post mail He said Saturday he had received reports that some airlines were only offering flight credits to passengers in the event of flight cancellations.

“Let me be clear — you have the right to an immediate refund if your flight is canceled and you do not rebook,” Buttigieg said.

Passengers lined up in long lines at airports as flights were cancelled and delayed, and some missed out on life events such as weddings, funerals and birthdays.

At Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, long lines of passengers waited for assistance Saturday, while many flights were canceled or delayed.

“It was chaos, frustration and hunger,” Delta passenger Catalina Villareal described the scene.

Villarreal expressed frustration with what she called a lack of information from airlines.

“I cancelled three reservations. I checked in three times for all the flights. Now I have two bags somewhere… at the airport, and no one knows how long it will take for them to arrive,” Villarreal said. “So we were told to come tomorrow or Monday only.”

Thousands of people face the same uncertainty as they crowd 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 on Saturday. Whitfield and his partner, Jonathan Shedd, left Tampa on Thursday and missed their connecting flight in Atlanta because of bad weather, which delayed their landing and forced the plane to refuel in Tallahassee.

After their rescheduled flight on Friday was delayed several times, the couple decided to cancel and head home. But with no flights available back to Tampa, they spent their second night at an airport hotel on Friday night. They were unable to get a Delta voucher for either stay.

“He (Richard) was on hold for 24 hours, and when he finally got his number in line, it was 2001,” Shedd told CNN.

Two hours later, Richard’s spot on Delta’s virtual customer service list was 2,300 people in line, Shedd said.

The whole ordeal has had a huge impact on him, Whitfield tells CNN.

“For me, it was a domino effect on humanity and everything we need to survive: food, sleep, water, shelter,” he said.

After spending 48 hours in Atlanta, the couple found a flight back to Tampa on Saturday night, and they say they hope the flight isn’t delayed or canceled. For now, the couple can do nothing but wait and “get a good stiff drink,” Shedd and Whitfield said.

Another traveler was at Boston Logan International Airport trying to get to Fort Lauderdale for her father’s 96th birthday.

“My flight was canceled this morning. I was supposed to fly to Fort Lauderdale, so they rebooked me to West Palm Beach and when I got to the airport, the flight was canceled. They didn’t tell me — I didn’t get any notification, nothing,” Charlotte Yeh told her CNN affiliate. wfxt on saturday.

Some passengers at Boston airport expressed frustration that their travel and summer plans were being thwarted.

“We booked this flight to Las Vegas a while ago, but it got canceled outright, the next flight is probably Monday at 6 p.m., and we were only supposed to be in Vegas for four nights, so we’re going to have to rebook this flight,” Mark Forbes told WFXT.

Carol Edwards said her scheduled flights on Friday and Saturday were cancelled and the next flight will not be available until Monday.

“We have a lot of plans like visiting family, eating out, seeing friends, partying, so there’s nothing we can do,” she told WFXT.