Airlines worldwide are grappling with a massive IT shutdown that has grounded thousands of flights. But things are starting to return to at least a semblance of normalcy.
With much of the world, including airlines, banks and medical offices, hit by a global computer outage on 19JUL, Porter Airlines early in the day grounded all flights until noon. That was later extended to 3 p.m., causing a huge backup for the airline and massive headaches for pax and travel advisors.
At 2:30 PM ET, Porter announced that its operations were restarting and advised pax to be patient as the system comes back to life.
"Systems are back online now and we are beginning to launch flights," Porter CEO Kevin Jackson told Open Jaw. "It's been a rough day for a lot of companies around the world."
CNN reports more than 2,400 U.S. inbound and outbound flights were cancelled. Airports were jammed with frustrated pax waiting to hear information about cancelled or delayed flights, and social media channels are alive with tales of woe.
Reports say the incident appears to be linked to CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company.
"The global IT outage has resulted in carriers adjusting operations for travellers impacted by the outage," YYZ officials said on the official Toronto Pearson Twitter/X social media feed. "Some international arrivals are advising of delays this evening. Be sure to check the flight status of both arriving and departing flights before heading to the airport."
According to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company, as of 12:30 PM Eastern Time, there were 4,497 cancelled flights globally and growing, representing 4% of flights. If you counted 200 passengers per plane, that would be nearly a million stranded pax.
Delta, a partner of WestJet, was particularly hard hit. Flight Aware stats as of 3:30 p.m. ET showed 846 cancelled Delta flights, or 22% of the airline's total. For United, an Air Canada partner, it was showing 393 cancelled flights, or 13%, and for American Airlines it was showing 364 cancellations, or 10%. There also were almost 3,700 delayed flights as of 3:30 p.m.
CNBC was calling it "the largest IT outage in history," an incident that no doubt will lead many companies to re-evaluate their systems and try to figure out a way to avoid such a shocking setback.
Canadian Market
"There are 2,788 scheduled flights by commercial airlines from Canada today, which would carry up to 444K passengers," a Cirium spokesperson said. "Around 100 flights have been cancelled, 56 of which are Porter Airlines. Air Canada and WestJet have experienced limited disruptions. Generally, the Canadian airlines are operating on-time; the U.S. carriers flying from Canada have had departure delays."
| Airline | Flights Scheduled from Canada | Cancelled | Cancel % |
| Air Canada | 881 | 5 | 0.57% |
| WestJet | 529 | 11 | 2.08% |
| Porter Airlines | 212 | 56 | 26.42% |
| Flair Airlines | 93 | 2 | 2.15% |
| United Airlines | 78 | 11 | 14.10% |
| Delta Air Lines | 55 | 7 | 12.73% |
| American Airlines | 51 | 1 | 1.96% |
| Air Transat | 44 | 0 | 0.00% |
12-hour timelapse of American Airlines, Delta, and United plane traffic after what was likely the biggest IT outage in history forced a nationwide ground stop of the three airlines. pic.twitter.com/wwcQeiEtVe
— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) July 19, 2024
In an email to Open Jaw, Robert Kokonis, president & managing director of AirTrav Inc., said, "The interconnected nature of airline I.T. systems, which is necessary, has also exposed its achilles heel. One critical software issue can take down not just one system, but the whole operational ecosystem. In this case, you have an airline Passenger Service Systems (PSS) that incorporates a network of software applications including the airline departure control system (DCS), inventory system, and reservation system.
"Potentially compounding this, any payment gateway providers that have been impacted by this I.T. meltdown and, who also support airline payment processes, could also be making life difficult for airline reservations and for the airport passenger handling environment."
"At airports across the globe, airline staff are scrambling to reassure customers and try to provide some clarity on when – or if – their flight might finally be able to take off. Some are resorting to paper-based systems to try to speed up the process while the IT system is down," CNN said.
Mary Schiavo, a CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general at the US Department of Transportation, said that while staff might be able to console customers, they can do little until the computer systems are fully operational again.
"Getting a plane off the ground without a computer is virtually impossible.
“The lines at certain airports are literally out the door. So it’s having a pretty big impact. People are clinging to hope that the fix for the computer problem has been put in place,” Schiavo told CNN. But she said, “You cannot fly” without a fully operational IT system. “Other than putting a bag tag on, it’s all computer."
Operations are restarting after today’s third-party system outage affecting multiple global industries.
As systems come online, passengers may check their current flight status on https://t.co/dKln1auJWV or via our mobile app.
— Porter Airlines (@porterairlines) July 19, 2024
Porter warned it could take several days for the damage to be repaired.
"The rebooking process will take a period of time, with new flights confirmed over a number of days due to high passenger volumes."
"Any passengers needing to cancel travel plans as a direct result of the systems issue will be offered full refunds," Porter said. "When our website is active, you may submit your refund requests using our Customer Relations contact. Refunds will be processed at a later date.
"It is not necessary to contact Porter prior to your scheduled flight. We're working to return service to you as quickly as possible," officials said.
"We are monitoring the situation closely, at this time there is no major impact on Air Canada operations," an airline spokesperson told Open Jaw on the morning of 19JUL
WestJet released a statement saying it was aware of the CrowdStrike IT outage that was impacting Microsoft products and services, and that their IT team was closely monitoring the situation.
"At this time, there has been no direct impact to WestJet’s IT systems or operations and any flight cancellations across our network are unrelated to the CrowdStrike outage" the airline said in a late morning update. "We are expecting there may be some delays across our network as we operate to and from airports that have been affected. Additionally, guests travelling via WestJet’s network and connecting onwards with an alternative airline may be impacted.
"For these reasons, guests with imminent travel plans are advised to check the status of their flight prior to leaving for the airport."
KLM Flight Impact
The NL Times reports that Dutch airline KLM will suspend most of its operations on Friday while it works out a solution.
Flight Aware was reporting 118 cancelled KLM flights as of 3:30 pm. ET on 19JUL: almost one-in-five flights.
"The IT malfunction that caused disruptions worldwide for airlines and airports today has been almost completely resolved at KLM," the airline said around 11 a.m. ET. "Air traffic to and from Schiphol can be fully resumed. However, many flights have been delayed or canceled out of necessity."
"Flights continue to arrive and depart at the airport," Toronto Pearson said on its Twitter/X account. "As of now, Air Canada, Westjet, Sunwing and Flair operations have not been affected. We're still seeing issues with major American airlines (Delta, American, United) as well as Porter Airlines."
Early this morning, a third-party software outage impacted computer systems worldwide, including at United. We have resumed some flights but expect schedule disruptions to continue throughout Friday as we continue to troubleshoot many systems and programs.
We are continuing to work with our airline partners as the global IT outage impacts some airlines.
Travellers may notice the terminals are busier than normal this morning as we anticipate connecting 135,000 passengers today.
Please direct inquiries about flight status to your… pic.twitter.com/wP2QkOpfsi
— Toronto Pearson (@TorontoPearson) July 19, 2024
Writing on its Twitter/X account, American Airlines said, “Earlier this morning, a technical issue with a vendor impacted multiple carriers, including American. As of 5:00 a.m. ET, we have been able to safely re-establish our operation.”
"Delta has resumed some flights after a vendor technology issue impacting airlines and businesses globally," the airline said on Twitter/X. "We’ve issued a travel waiver and customers can monitor and manage their itineraries on dl.aero/6014lrDLu or the Fly Delta app."
