A widespread Microsoft outage is disrupting flights, banks, media outlets and companies around the world.
Escalating disruptions continued hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.
“Multiple services are continuing to see improvements in availability as our mitigation actions progress,” Microsoft wrote on X just before 1 a.m. Pacific.
“We’re continuing to reroute the affected traffic to healthy infrastructure,” the company said hours prior.
Toronto Pearson International Airport and Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport both confirmed that the global outage is disrupting some airlines and that flight delays and cancellations are possible. They asked travellers to contact airlines directly for information.
“Flights continue to arrive and depart at the airport. As of now, Air Canada, Westjet, Sunwing, and Flair operations have not been affected,” Toronto Pearson wrote on X. “We’re still seeing issues with major American airlines [Delta, American, United] as well as Porter Airlines. If you’re travelling or picking up loved ones this morning, please check the flight status with your airline.”
Porter Airlines announced it cancelled all flights until noon on Friday “due to third-party systems outages affecting global industries.”
The website DownDectector, which tracks user-reported internet outages, recorded growing outages in services at Visa, ADT security, Amazon, and airlines including American Airlines and Delta.
One possible cause of the internet issues plaguing airlines, companies, and governments worldwide is a tool developed by the online security firm CrowdStrike.
Israel’s Cyber Directorate was among the groups attributing the issues to CrowdStrike.
A recording playing on CrowdStrike’s customer service line said, “CrowdStrike is aware of the reports of crashes on Microsoft ports related to the Falcon sensor,” it said, referring to one of its products used to block online attacks. It said callers should monitor its customer support portal.
Flights in U.S. grounded due to outage
News outlets in Australia reported that airlines, telecommunications providers, banks, and media broadcasters were disrupted as they lost access to computer systems. Some New Zealand banks said they were also offline.
Some callers to CityNews reported that outages were affecting some flights at Vancouver International Airport (YVR). The airport has not said whether any delays or other impacts were related to the global outage, though there were some disruptions due to “resource constraints” that NAV CANADA had announced earlier in the day Thursday.
In the U.S., the FAA said the airlines United, American, Delta and Allegiant had all been grounded. Airports in Europe and Australia also reported problems. CityNews has reached out to YVR, as well as local health authorities, to confirm whether the reported impacts are related to the Microsoft issue.
Many people took to social media to say they had been affected by the outage, with some sharing that they had encountered the “blue screen of death,” which Microsoft refers to as Blue Screen errors.
This “can occur if a serious problem causes Windows to shut down or restart unexpectedly,” Microsoft explains on its website.
“These errors can be caused by both hardware and software issues,” the company adds.