NEWS: Over 180 Flights Delayed or Canceled at Orlando Airport Due to Major Microsoft Outage

In the past, we’ve often seen flight delays and cancelations around major holidays or busy travel times.

Things can get super busy at the airport, slowing you down

We’ve also seen them caused by major storms or by issues with airlines’ technical systems. However, today there’s a major outage that’s grounding flights all over the country — and it’s affecting more than just airlines.

ABC News reports that some Microsoft systems ceased to work on Friday, July 19th, which has caused outages for airports, airlines, banks, and many other institutions.

An American cybersecurity technology firm called CrowdStrike confirmed that this was not a cyberattack — it was an issue with software. A fix has currently been deployed and they’re working with customers to get things up and running.

The Federal Aviation Administration {FAA} sent out an alert this morning saying that American Airlines, United Airlines, and Delta Airlines asked for a global ground stop on all flights. As of 6:25AM this morning, more than 500 flights had already been canceled. At the Orlando International Airport specifically, 186 flights have been canceled, according to FlightAware.

Flights that were already in the air were allowed to continue on, but no American, United, or Delta flights have been allowed to depart during the outage.

“A third-party software outage is impacting computer systems worldwide, including at United,” United Airlines said in a statement on Friday morning. “While we work to restore those systems, we are holding all aircraft at their departure airports. Flights already airborne are continuing to their destinations.”

These IT outages have even been reported globally. Berlin Airport in Germany, the London Stock Exchange, Google Cloud, Microsoft, and Gatwick Airport in the United Kingdom have all had technical issues. “We’re investigating an issue impacting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services,” Microsoft said in a statement released on social media Friday morning.

We’ll continue to update you with more information about these outages and the travel delays they’re causing, so stay tuned to AllEars for the latest.