A global tech outage, which appeared to stem from a failed update between Microsoft and global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, was disrupting operations across various sectors of Europe on July 19, including with EU airports and airlines.
Several European airports reported being severely affected by the software outage.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, a major European air transport hub, confirmed the global cyber issue’s impact, and advised travellers to contact their airlines for updates.
Spanish airport operator Aena reported a computer systems “incident” at all Spanish airports, potentially causing flight delays.
Passengers travelling through Prague Airport experienced departure delays the morning of July 19 due to a global check-in system outage.
While that airport indicated the situation had stabilised by midday, other airports were not accepting new passengers, thus further delaying departures from Prague.
“Of European airports, Zurich and Amsterdam are currently not accepting any arrivals. At the moment, the easyJet flight from Prague to Amsterdam and the Swiss flight to Zurich have been suspended”, the airport revealed on Twitter/X.
UPDATE 2:
Of European airports, Zurich and Amsterdam are currently not accepting any arrivals. At the moment, the easyJet flight from Prague to Amsterdam and the Swiss flight to Zurich have been suspended.The cause is an outage of the global system, which Prague Airport cannot…
— Prague Airport (@PragueAirport) July 19, 2024
Germany’s air travel system was also noticeably affected, disrupting operations across the country.
Berlin Airport temporarily halted all of its flights, too, due to a technical fault, a spokesperson told news agency Reuters Friday.
Hamburg Airport reported four of its airlines experienced issues with CrowdStrike but said it had successfully managed to avoid severe disruptions.
A spokesperson for Zurich Airport stated while they were not experiencing problems, flights to Berlin were cancelled because that airport was not accepting incoming flights until late morning.
Major airlines across Europe have also reported issues.
Airlines such as the largest Dutch airline KLM said it could not handle flights and suspended most of its operations.
Air France, KLM’s parent company, said its operations were disrupted, too.
CrowdStrike’s CEO George Kurtz clarified on X that the issues were not due to a cyberattack, reassuring that “the issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed.”
CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We…
— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024
As a result of the IT outage, the shares of both Microsoft and cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike plummeted on Friday.
Financial news outlet Bloomberg reported that CrowdStrike’s shares fell as much as 21 per cent in premarket trading, and were currently down by 16 per cent from the previous day.
