According to the latest reports, a widespread downtime at Microsoft on Friday affected flights, banks, media and companies around the world, with several major U.S. airlines ordered to ground their flights, TV broadcasts forced to go off the air and businesses around the world struggling to cope with the ongoing major IT outages.
Microsoft said the “root cause” of the global downtime had been fixed, adding that residual issues were still affecting some services.
“The root cause has been resolved, however, residual impacts continue to affect some Microsoft 365 applications and services,” Microsoft said in a post on Friday.
Industry experts say the outage appears to stem, at least in part, from a software update released by cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike. Earlier Friday, CrowdStrike said it experienced a major outage after problems with its latest technology update.
Microsoft Windows is one of CrowdStrike’s customers.
CrowdStrike’s CEO said the IT issues that led to the global outage have been identified and fixes have been deployed.
Several U.S. carriers grounded, massive global flight delays
The Microsoft downtime has caused major service disruptions for airlines and airports. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it has issued grounding orders for United, American Airlines, and Delta Air Lines.The FAA said the grounding orders affect all flights on those airlines, regardless of destination.
Later in the day, American Airlines said it had resolved a technical issue that affected its service Friday morning.
“This morning, a technical issue with a vendor affected several air carriers, including American Airlines. As of 5 a.m. EST, we have been able to safely re-establish our operations. We apologize for any inconvenience to our passengers,” the airline said in a statement to CNN.
United said it would resume “some flights” Friday morning, but warned travelers that they could still experience delays.
Delta Air Lines said it had “suspended its global flight schedule.”
“We are working to resolve the issue and resume operations as quickly as possible,” Delta said in a statement.
The airline said it intends to issue new travel waivers for affected customers.

In addition, Frontier Airlines said it was “impacted by the Microsoft service disruption” and had to ground all flights. Spirit Airlines’ booking system was also affected, and in travel advisories posted on its website, the low-cost carrier urged passengers to check for updates and apologized for “any inconvenience this may have caused”. Allegiant Airlines said they were experiencing difficulties with online booking, check-in and travel management functions.
Globally, airports and flights in the UK and Europe, as well as Australia and New Zealand, were also affected. Dubai International Airport, one of the world’s busiest aviation hubs, has announced a return to normal operations following a global IT outage.
Singapore’s famous Changi Airport also faced an IT outage. Changi Airport said:- “The check-in process for some airlines at Changi Airport is being managed manually due to a global outage of many organizations’ IT systems.”
Singapore Airlines noted on X that its flights were not affected, but that it was experiencing technical difficulties.
Cathay Pacific said their operations were also affected by the technical issues. According to a statement on Cathay Pacific’s website, the company’s online ticket booking service is currently unavailable.
The company also said in another statement that “due to unexpected technical issues, the self-check-in facility at Hong Kong International Airport is currently unavailable.”
911 services disrupted in multiple states
Emergency communications services were disrupted in several U.S. states Friday morning.
Phoenix, Arizona, police said the outage affected the Phoenix Police Department’s 911 dispatch center, although the 911 center remained operational.
“If you need to call 911, please do not hang up if you are asked to wait a short time. The city’s IT department is working to find a solution until the outage is restored,” police said on X.
In Alaska, many 911 and non-emergency call centers were not functioning statewide.
In New Hampshire, some 911 services were down overnight but have since been restored.
Global banks, media, businesses affected
Several banking operations around the world have also been affected. Australia’s largest bank, Commonwealth Bank, reported disruptions to its operations. Australia’s ANZ and Westpac were also affected.
The London Stock Exchange Group said Friday that technical problems affected its pricing data and newsletters. Sky News, Britain’s main television news channel, was unable to broadcast live Friday morning.
Hong Kong Disneyland said its online ticketing system was down due to an “unexpected computer system failure” and reminded visitors to buy same-day tickets at the ticket booths at the park’s entrance.
Microsoft confirmed on Friday that Microsoft users in China have experienced a “blue screen” with an error message, commonly known as a “blue screen of death”.