by Flight cancellations: Are planes grounded?
Air travel was disrupted around the world. Flights were delayed and canceled across the US, Europe and the UK, causing chaos at many international transport hubs.
Frontier Airlines has grounded flights for more than two hours and blamed problems with Microsoft’s online services.
In the United States, American Airlines, United and Delta asked the Federal Aviation Administration to halt all flights worldwide, according to an FAA alert.
Ryanair told passengers to arrive an hour earlier than usual for flights, while Manchester Airport has said its ground crews are handling operations manually.
All flights have reportedly been grounded at Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport. It comes after the airport initially warned that a technical issue would delay check-ins.
IndiGo, the Indian low-cost airline, said it is affected by an ongoing issue with Microsoft Azure. He said customers may have difficulty accessing boarding passes and some flights may also be affected.
Gatwick Airport has said it is relying on back-up processes to handle passengers this morning, but has kept its terminals open. “This is a worldwide Microsoft issue affecting the check-in, baggage and security systems of some airlines, including eGates,” he said.
Pictures have been posted of large crowds gathering amid long delays at Charleroi airport in Brussels.
Dutch airline KLM has said it will suspend most of its operations, flight handling “impossible” due to warning issues.
Amadeus, a company that manages baggage at Heathrow, now confirms it has been affected.
Pictures have now emerged of airports across Europe using whiteboards and marker pens to update travelers on their flights.
Are trains running today?
Thameslink, Southern Rail and Gatwick Express face “extensive IT issues across our entire network” which has left driver diagrams inaccessible at some locations. He says this will cause potential delays, particularly on Thameslink and Great Northern. There are also reports that ticket machines are not working at some stations.
Northern rail company Merseyrail has warned that the crisis is affecting its passenger information boards and the ability to print third-party tickets at stations.
Subway services in the US capital were disrupted. The operator Metro Forward said its internal systems are down. His website was not accessible at the time of writing.
Back in London, staff have been drafted in to manually scan tickets at Waterloo.
Bookmakers
Not even high street bookies are immune from the outage, it seems. Ladbrokes has told customers trying to access its website this morning that it is experiencing “some technology issues”. The website Downdetector, which logs outages, reported an increase in complaints from users trying to access the bookie today.
Sports, museums and entertainment
The planned ticket release for Manchester United has been postponed today. He said on his Matchday X account that he expected to send tickets at midday, warning of ongoing website issues. Middlesbrough FC also said they cannot process card payments.
It looks like many cultural institutions across the country will be struggling with card payments today. A wide range of museums, visitor centers and cultural centers from Portsmouth’s Historic Dock to Glasgow Science Center and Monkey World in Dorset have warned that visitors will have to pay cash.
News organizations
Sky News stopped broadcasting and was showing a message apologizing to viewers this morning. It has since resumed airing.
The Telegraph is experiencing problems logging into computer systems and accessing the internet.
CBBC went down. A blue screen currently tells the viewer “Sorry! Something is wrong”. The service has restarted.
Banks and financial institutions
The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has warned that its data feed is currently experiencing technical issues, meaning company results and announcements are being delayed. He said: “The RNS news service is currently experiencing a third-party global technical issue which is preventing news from being published on londonstockexchange.com.”
Major banks across Australia have been hit: the Commonwealth Bank has said it is “urgently investigating any impact on our systems and services” after some customers were unable to make payments.
In New Zealand, banks ASB and Kiwibank have said their services are down.
Pictures have emerged that currency exchanges in Hong Kong are now being affected.
However, the Bank of England, which suffered an IT breach of a completely different nature yesterday, said it is “monitoring” the situation but indicated that its own systems have not been affected.
Emergency services
The NHS has said it is facing disruptions to its EMIS appointment and record system, but insisted it has measures in place to manage issues such as paper patient records and handwritten prescriptions.
911 outages were reported in several states across the US, including, reportedly, Alaska, New York, Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Ohio.
There have also been unconfirmed reports of breaches of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems in US hospitals, which are used to store and organize patient data by physicians.
Israeli systems have also been hit: the country’s Ministry of Health has warned that the cyber breach is causing hospital services to malfunction, reports Haaretz. Posts on social media indicate that some hospitals in Israel have moved to manual systems, and citizens have been warned that they may have difficulty reaching emergency services by phone.
Health care
GP services across the UK are reporting issues that are seriously affecting practices. Some were left with no access to medical appointments, medical records, booking appointments and even prescriptions, according to the surgeries’ social media posts.
Schools and universities
The education sector did not escape unscathed. Some institutions have now told children to stay at home on the last school day of the year. Some parents have been told to call in if their child is sick because the school’s IT systems are down. The University of Manchester has said it is treating IT issues “as a matter of urgency”.
Supermarkets
Even some supermarket self-checkout checkpoints have been hit by the outage, social media users report, with photos of checkouts at Australian supermarket Woolworths showing the so-called “Blue Screen of Death” on X.
UK supermarkets are also likely to be affected. It is understood some Morrisons customers are struggling to make contactless payments this morning, with customers complaining they were unable to pay in Waitrose stores. Sainsbury’s said it had not seen any issues with its own systems.
Downdetector is reporting a flood of consumer complaints about Waitrose, Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s. However, supermarkets visited by Telegraph journalists this morning appeared to be operating as normal.
Pubs and hospitality
Pub chain JD Wetherspoon has confirmed it is experiencing problems with its app, which customers use to order food and drinks for their tables. The chain has revealed that customers pay for their food and drink with cash.
Reports have come in that coffee chain Gail’s has stopped accepting card payments due to the intrusion.
