‘Have not slept for…,’ says passenger after Microsoft global outage caused flight delays and cancellations

Flight operations continue to feel the impact Microsoft global outage on Saturday, July 20. On Friday, several flights were reported to be delayed, re-scheduled and cancelled following massive IT catastrophe that put down check-in system at airports across India.

Delhi and Rajasthan Airports had to issue manual boarding passes amid the Microsoft issue which was apparently reported to be associated to an antivirus program update. According to Microsoft, the problems began at 1900 GMT on Thursday. It impacted users of its Azure cloud platform running cybersecurity software CrowdStrike Falcon.

Banks, TV channels and other business across the globe, in addition to Airlines, were struggling to deal with one of the biggest IT crashes in recent years.

We have listed some passenger woes following the global outage:

• A passenger at Delhi airport on Saturday morning noted that most of the flights are delayed and said, "I am travelling to London and my flight is delayed by half an hour at least. There is a long queue outside the airport," reported ANI.

• A passenger on Mumbai Airport said, "I was travelling from Mumbai to Bengaluru yesterday. The flight got cancelled...Although we were provided with the service, but they did not accommodate us, reported ANI. Adding, he said that we have not slept for the whole night.

• A passenger at Chennai International Airport highlighted the trouble the Microsoft issue brought with it as he stated, “I am a medical doctor from Sri Lanka. I was to go to Bhubaneshwar to give a lecture, but yesterday night my flight got cancelled.” He further noted that he couldn't find a flight back to Bhubaneshwar today morning and is going back to Sri Lanka, reported ANI. His troubles were further mounted as he was unable to get a flight and was stuck at the Airport.

• A view of Chennai Airport shows passengers waiting in queue outside as flight services remain affected for the second day. Over 16 flights that were set to take off from Chennai Airport were cancelled, while 30 others were delayed for several hours.

• A stranded passenger at Goa airport gave an account of the misery that Windows outage brought with it, “My flight was from Goa to Delhi and there was a delay due to server issues." He alleged that the airlines staff handed over a hand made boarding pass with incorrectly spelled names. He added, "I was standing in the line for about two hours (to get the pass),” reported PTI.

• Over five flights that were set to take off from Raipur Airport were cancelled on Friday.

A friend of one of the flight passengers, underscoring the problems, informed PTI that one of her companions had their flight delayed while another who had to go to Kolkata had their flight cancelled.

Also read: Microsoft Outage Live Updates: CrowdStrike CEO says deeply sorry for inconvenience, ‘customers remain fully protected’

One of the passenger at Gujarat Airport, highlighting the setback of depending on digital systems, said, “We are used to the digital world now. We cannot work without it. This crash will impact us on a large scale.”

Also read: Microsoft outage: How Indian banks, financial institutions averted global Windows glitch— RBI explains

BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy on Friday said, "The Microsoft cloud computing system has failed…... It has affected the back-end services which include bookings, check-ins, etc."

(With agency inputs)