Delays on United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines caused major travel chaos around the world on Friday.
July 19, 2024 at 8:17am PDT | Updated July 19, 2024 at 8:24am PDT
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Flights departing from Los Angeles International Airport, Hollywood Burbank Airport, Long Beach Airport and Orange County’s John Wayne Airport were temporarily grounded Friday after airlines asked the Federal Aviation Administration to ground all flights worldwide, according to an FAA alert.
The request for a global suspension came after Melbourne Airport in Australia reported it was “experiencing a global technical issue” that was affecting check-in procedures, ABC 7 reported.
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“There are delays on United, Delta and American Airlines flights. Our communications center is in constant contact with the FAA,” LAX spokesperson Day Levine told City News Service.
Mr Levine added that he did not know if all the delays were related to issues at Melbourne airport.
Flights already in the air will be allowed to continue to their destinations, but no American Airlines, United Airlines or Delta flights will depart from their respective airports.
According to ABC 7, the FAA has instructed air traffic controllers to inform pilots in the air that airlines are currently experiencing communications outages.
“We are aware of the Crowdstrike technical issue affecting multiple airlines. American Airlines is working with Crowdstrike to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and apologizes for any inconvenience caused to customers,” American Airlines said in a statement obtained by ABC News.
CrowdStrike, a US cybersecurity company, has admitted responsibility for the error and is working to fix it.
“A third-party software issue is affecting computer systems around the world, including at United,” United said in a statement Friday morning. “All aircraft are remaining at their origin airports while we work to restore systems. Flights already in the air are continuing to their destinations.”
American Airlines said in a statement at 2 a.m. Friday that flights had resumed normal.
“Earlier this morning, a technical issue with a vendor affected multiple airlines, including American Airlines. As of 5:00 a.m. ET, we were able to safely resume operations and apologize to our customers for any inconvenience,” the statement read.
Outages are widespread around the world, with reports also at Berlin Airport in Germany, the London Stock Exchange, Google Cloud, Microsoft and Gatwick Airport in the UK.
Variety reported that cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike released a statement saying it is “actively working with customers affected by the flaw found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not affected. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified and isolated, and a fix is being deployed.”
Microsoft, meanwhile, said it was investigating the extent of the outage.
In a statement posted on social media on Friday morning, Microsoft said it was “investigating an issue impacting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services.”
Cargo traffic has been disrupted and delayed at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, with KNX reporting that hundreds of trucks are waiting for hours to unload and load their cargo.
Amtrak reports that the outage is preventing credit card transactions on its Pacific Surfliner service. Online reservations can be made through Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPay.
City News Service