Microsoft´s IT services have crashed worldwide; causing havoc in a world reliant on technology. Passengers are now sharing their first handwritten boarding passes on social media.
Worldwide impact
Microsoft´s collapse affected airlines across the globe, including Europe, the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and India. As passengers were met with blue screens on the airlines’ websites, companies took to social media to release updates.
Ryanair said on X; “We advise all passengers to arrive at the airport at least 3 hours before their scheduled departure time.” Vueling Airlines posted a similar message; “We inform you that due to a global computer systems outage, our flight operations could be altered. We are working to minimise the impact on our clients.”
Going manual
In India, the airlines Vistara, IndiGo, SpiceJet and Akasa Air were all affected by the outage but were not stopped from operating. Returning to the times of manual service, airport workers in India began issuing handwritten boarding passes to all passengers.
An X user, Akshay Kothari in India, posted a photo of his handwritten pass, adding; “The Microsoft/ CrowdStrike outage has taken down most airports in India. I got my first hand-written boarding pass today.”
As reported by local Press, a passenger at the Goa airport shared his experience; “My flight was from Goa to Delhi and there was a delay due to server issues. They gave us a boarding pass, made by hand, with our names spelt wrong. I was standing in line for about two hours to get the pass.”
The Akasa Air officials stated on X; “Currently we are following manual check-in and boarding processes at the airports and hence request passengers with immediate travel plans to reach the airport early to check-in at our counters. We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused and want to assure you that our teams are working with our service provider to resolve the same at the earliest.”
The causes
Microsoft 365 stated on X; “We´re investigating an issue impacting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services.” A post was later added, stating that the company is now “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact in a more expedient fashion” and that they are “observing a positive trend in service availability.”
Many tech journalists, including Chris Stokel-Walker, suggested the major Microsoft outage was caused by an update from the e-computer threat checker CrowdStrike Falcon.
Devices such as computers and phones, have become “bricked”; and unable to function due to the corrupted software but CrowdStrike has not issued a confirmation.
