Microsoft outage halts flights, banks, media outlets and businesses globally

A widespread Microsoft outage disrupted flights, banks, media outlets, and companies around the world on Friday. The disruptions have continued for hours, even as the tech company announced it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.

The website DownDetector, which tracks user-reported internet outages, recorded increasing disruptions in services at Visa, ADT Security, Amazon, and airlines including American Airlines and Delta.

In Australia, news outlets reported that airlines, telecommunications providers, banks, and media broadcasters lost access to their computer systems. Airlines in the U.K., Europe, and India reported similar issues, and some New Zealand banks went offline.

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

“We still expect that users will continue to see gradual relief as we continue to mitigate the issue. The latest information on impacted and recovered services will be provided within the admin centre and our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions.”

Similar: Starlink experienced service outage that affected 41,393 users early today

As of the latest update (1o:30 AM WAT) on its status site, Microsoft wrote: “Users may be unable to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services.”

Impacted services due to the outage include:

• PowerBI: Users may notice that their service is in read-only mode while we address impact.
• Microsoft Fabric: Users may notice that their service is in read-only mode while we address impact.
• Microsoft Teams: Users may be unable to leverage Microsoft Teams functions including presence, group chats, and user registration.
• Microsoft 365 admin centre: Admins may be intermittently unable to access the Microsoft 365 admin centre and any action may be delayed if accessible.

The global impact of the Microsoft outage

According to AP, Airlines, railways and television stations in the United Kingdom were being disrupted by the computer issues. The budget airline Ryanair, train operators TransPennine Express and Govia Thameslink Railway, as well as broadcaster Sky News are among those affected.

Widespread problems were also reported at Australian airports, where lines grew and some passengers were stranded as online check-in services and self-service booths were disabled. Passengers in Melbourne queued for more than an hour to check in, although flights were still operating.

Airline operations in India were disrupted, affecting thousands.

Hong Kong’s Airport Authority said in a statement that the outage was affecting some airlines at the city’s airport and they had switched to manual check-in.

In Germany, Berlin Airport said Friday morning that “due to a technical fault, there will be delays in check-in.” It said that flights were suspended until 10 a.m. (0800GMT), without giving details, German news agency, dpa reported.

The BBC reports that more than 1,000 flights have been cancelled around the world today, citing aviation analytics firm Cirium.

This figure – currently 1,078 – will only get bigger as the knock-on impacts grow.

BBC

News outlets in Australia, including the ABC and Sky News, were unable to broadcast on their TV and radio channels and reported sudden shutdowns of Windows-based computers. Some news anchors broadcast live online from dark offices, in front of computers showing “blue screens of death.”

In South Africa, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange issued a notice stating that the FTSE indices are not updating.

“Clients are advised that we are aware of the FTSE issue globally and are awaiting resolution. Clients are advised to trade with caution,” it said, according to BusinessTech.

On the MyBroadBand forum, users said that at least one major insurer has been affected.

South Africa’s largest bank by customer numbers, Capitec, is also facing an outage due to problems with its international service provider. However, it remains unclear if this is linked to the Windows blue screen of death issue or Microsoft cloud outages.