Flight delays may ripple through weekend at Atlanta's airport due to CrowdStrike outage

ATLANTA - Airlines at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport are struggling to recover after a worldwide IT outage forced cancelations and delays on Friday. 

Cybersecurity tech giant, CrowdStrike, says an update to its Falcon software led to multiple software companies, most notably Microsoft, seeing massive failures. 

Hospitals, banks, government agencies and other businesses were impacted. Airlines seemed to take the biggest hit, forcing the cancelation or delay of thousands of flights.  

By early Friday afternoon, passengers were flying in and out of Atlanta's airport once again. However, many passengers are still being impacted by delayed and canceled flights, and it is not quite business as usual yet. 

While some flights did get off the ground by midday, the damage was done, and some travelers won't make it to their destination until the weekend. 

"It was just total chaos. People everywhere. You couldn't even get anywhere to find out when the next flight gets out," said Annie Ross who was heading to a wedding up north.  

Airline passengers around the world were in limbo as planes were grounded after the tech outage.  

"I'm sad," said Kathy Marelle, who was trying to get to Arkansas.  

Marelle is missing her grandson's 5th birthday party. 

"I've been here all day only to have my flights from Atlanta to Houston, to catch the second flight were canceled, canceled, canceled," said Marelle.  

Devon Herron was hoping to hit the jackpot in Las Vegas, but his luck ran out the moment he got to the airport. 

His Thursday night flight was delayed due to the weather, then canceled due to staffing issues. 

"They said we only have four flight attendants, we can't fly without 5 so we need everybody to deplane," said Herron. 

The flight was rescheduled, but then came the tech outage.  

"They finally said the system is down, there's nothing we can do," said Herron.  

Throughout the day, there were huge lines of weary, frustrated travelers at the airport. Some were trying to find their luggage that had been put on planes before the cancelations hit, others just trying to reschedule.  

"It's been a long day!" said Ross.  

According to FlightAware, as of Friday evening, hundreds of flights in and out of Atlanta were canceled Friday, more than a thousand delayed.  

More than 40,000 flights around the world were affected.

ORIGINAL STORY

Flights at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport were brought to a halt early Friday morning due to a global software outage that wreaked havoc on businesses, banks, and more. 

United, American, Delta and Allegiant flights were grounded at airports across the country due to issues affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services, the FAA reports. Some flights have since resumed for Delta, American and United.

The website DownDetector, which tracks user-reported internet outages, recorded outages in services at airlines including American Airlines and Delta, along with other products like Visa, ADT security and Amazon.

In a statement, American Airlines said they were aware of a "technical issue" with CrowdStrike that is impacting multiple carriers" and were in contact with planes currently in flight.

SEE MORE: Georgia hospitals, businesses also reportedly impacted by global IT outage

A Delta Air Lines spokesperson said that some flights have resumed, and that affected customers will be notified on the Fly Delta App and or by text messages. Updates to flights will also be provided in the airline's app. 

United Airlines said the outage was impacting its computer systems and warned customers of potential flight delays. The carrier said some flights are resuming, and it is issuing waivers to make it easier to change travel plans within its website.

MORE: Global tech outage: Here's how to fix the dreaded 'Blue Screen of Death'

"The FAA is closely monitoring a technical issue impacting IT systems at U.S. airlines," a spokesperson for the FAA said in a statement. "Several airlines have requested FAA assistance with ground stops for their fleets until the issue is resolved."

Atlanta airport travelers frustrated over delays

At the Atlanta airport, travelers formed long lines at customer service as more and more flights showed delays. Multiple screens at the airline showed blue Windows errors due to the outage.

Some travelers told FOX 5 they were actually on their plane when they were all asked to go back to the terminal and wait for hours.

"I know my flight was canceled. It was delayed a few times. It was delayed a few times and then they canceled it," traveler Miko Green.

The United States is not the only country affected by the major outage. News outlets in Australia reported that airlines, telecommunications providers and banks, and media broadcasters were disrupted as they lost access to computer systems. Airlines in the U.K., Europe and India reported problems, and some New Zealand banks said they were offline.

In Georgia, the Department of Driver Services said its computer systems were down at more than 60 offices statewide. The department was still giving road tests, but wasn’t issuing licenses to people who passed.

MARTA officials said problems had caused service reductions on its rail system earlier in the morning, but that full rail service had been restored. The transit authority's website and app remain affected by the outage.

Microsoft 365 posted on X that the company was "working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact in a more expedient fashion" and that they were "observing a positive trend in service availability."

CrowdStrike apologizes for software issues after Windows update

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said the company was working to fix problems that Windows users of its tools were experiencing.

"We’re deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this, including our companies," CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on NBC’s "Today Show" Friday. "We know what the issue is" and are working to remediate it.

He said the system was sent an update and the update had a bug in it causing a problem to Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

"It was only the Microsoft operating system" that was affected, though it didn’t happen on every Microsoft Windows system, he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.