“It was eerie”: Travel pro recounts chaos of IT outage; flight cancellations persist

This article was updated on Monday, July 22 at 9:58 a.m. EST.

Airlines are picking up the pieces after a global IT outage disrupted itineraries across the world last week.

Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike said a configuration update to its Falcon platform released Friday (July 19) “triggered a logic error” that led to “a system crash and blue screen (BSOD) on impacted systems.”

What followed was a major glitch for airlines, medical facilities, businesses and police forces around the world, with Microsoft computers showing what’s informally known as “blue screens of death.”

The issue was resolved shortly after, the company said. But chaos ensued for companies that rely on the technology – airlines included.

Major U.S. airlines grounded flights during and after the outage – a disruption that lasted well into the weekend.

READ MORE: Global IT outage grounds flights; disruptions hit Toronto Pearson, Porter cancels

As of Sunday night, around 1,600 flights into, within or out of the U.S. were cancelled, while more than 8,500 U.S. flights were delayed, according to tracking website FlightAware. 

The tally, though, marked an improvement from the more than 2,500 flights that were scrapped on Saturday morning.

Still, reports of long lines at airports around the world have filled social media. Over the weekend, users online snapped photos of blue screens that were still appearing on some airport TV screens.

“It was eerie”

Ensemble’s Ian Elliott was among those caught up in the chaos on Friday.

The consortium's vice-president of destinations and specialty was wrapping up in Burlington, Vermont at The Travel Corporation’s (TTC’s) group advisory board meeting, and about to head home, when suddenly his United Airlines plane was grounded.

“It was eerie,” Elliott told PAX, recounting his experience at the airport when the glitch hit. “Almost every screen was either saying cancelled, or showed the ‘blue screen of death.' It felt like what we all imagined Y2K would be like.”

With limited access to bookings, airline staff resorted to rebooking passengers manually by phone, Elliott said.

“I felt like people were pretty understanding,” he said. “It wasn’t a singular air issue, it was everyone.”

In the end, the glitch cost Elliott a day. He said he was among the first passengers to fly home to Toronto on Saturday morning.

Others in his group, however, weren’t as lucky. Some faced flight cancellations through to Sunday, he said.

Porter reboots systems

In Canada, Porter Airlines was impacted the most. 

READ MORE: Porter operations returning to normal amid global tech outage

The Toronto-based carrier cancelled all of its flights until 3 p.m. EST on Friday, offering refunds to those who had to cancel their plans as a direct result of the glitch.

By around 2:30 p.m. that day, Porter announced that it was “in the early stages of returning to normal,” but said the reboot would take a “period of time” and that further delays and cancellations “are possible” while the network recovers.

In a company statement to PAX on Monday morning (July 22), Porter said its flights resumed as normal on Saturday. 

"Almost all passengers still travelling were able to do so over the weekend, and we’re continuing to support those that require further assistance. Our goal was to get everyone still travelling on new flights as quickly as possible based on availability," the statement reads. 

Cancellations by the numbers

On Friday, there were 2,788 scheduled flights by commercial airlines from Canada, carrying up to 444,000 passengers, said aviation analytics company Cirium.

About 100 flights were cancelled, 56 of which were from Porter. Air Canada and WestJet appeared to experience limited disruptions.

“Generally, the Canadian airlines are operating on-time,” Cirium wrote in a statement last week.

Cirium shared a global update on Sunday (July 21), noting 2,853 flight cancellations, representing 2.63 per cent of scheduled flights.

“Today is a better day for some of the global airlines,” the company wrote at around 6:30 p.m. EST

In the U.S., however, there were 26,260 flights scheduled to depart on Sunday, of which 1,471 were cancelled.

That’s still about three times more than normal and only a slightly lower cancellation rate than Saturday, Cirium noted.

On-time performance was also slightly worse than usual, but returning to normal.

Delta, on Sunday, showed its highest cancellation rate since December 23, 2022, showing more than 1,000 scrapped flights, according to FlightAware.

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