Global Technical Outage Disrupts Banks and Airlines Worldwide

On Friday, July 19, a global technical outage impacted banks, airlines, and telecommunications operators across the world. Many international flights have been canceled, major airlines have suspended operations, and there have been disruptions on the London Stock Exchange Group’s platform.

Specifically, major American Airlines such as American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and Frontier Airlines have announced flight suspensions. Turkish Airlines, Turkey's largest carrier, has also reported global disruptions affecting ticket bookings and check-ins. Additionally, Ryanair and other major airlines are experiencing “potential network-wide issues.”

Airports in Berlin, Sydney, Edinburgh, and other cities are reporting disruptions. An “incident in the computer system” has impacted airports in Spain, Japan, and the United Kingdom, causing “technical errors” with flight check-ins.

Govia Thameslink Railway, one of the largest rail operators, has indicated that train services may be canceled.

Preliminary reports suggest that the IT system collapse may be related to a failure in Microsoft Azure, a cloud storage platform. Media sources have also speculated that a recent update to CrowdStrike, an American cybersecurity service, could be a contributing factor.

Microsoft has stated that they are taking “measures to mitigate the impact” of the service issues