Delta, United flights to Nigeria may be cancelled over massive IT outage

 

  • · Airlines, global businesses impacted

 

There are indications that both Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, two airlines operating to Nigeria under the Nigeria-US ‘Open Skies’ agreement may not after all fly to Nigeria as massive IT outage affect businesses around the world.

Delta Airlines in a statement made available to Aviation Metric said that customers whose flights are impacted will be notified by Delta via the Fly Delta app and text message.

Customers should use the Fly Delta app for updates. We apologize for the inconvenience as our teams work through this issue. Reports indicated that other airlines may also be impacted.

The groundings come hours after Microsoft said it had resolved a cloud services outage that had forced a grounding of Frontier and Sun Country flights, though it is unclear if the groundings of departing flights from major air carriers are related.

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American Airlines said it was “aware of a technical issue with CrowdStrike that is impacting multiple carriers. American is working with CrowdStrike to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”

Major US airlines including American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines have been grounded, while airports in Germany, Amsterdam and Spain are also reporting issues.

London’s biggest airport, Heathrow, said in a statement that its “flights are operational though we are experiencing delays”.

It said it was implementing contingency plans to minimise any impact on journeys and passengers are advised to check with their airline for the latest flight information.

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Gatwick Airport said “passengers may experience some delays” due to the global outage – particularly when checking in and passing through security.

Luton Airport also said it was aware of the global IT issue and is currently using manual systems to support operations.

Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers, warned customers of potential disruptions which it said would affect “all airlines operating across the network,” though it did not specify the nature of the disruptions.

While passengers at Edinburgh Airport were unable to use automated boarding pass scanners and monitors at security displayed a message saying “server offline”, according to a Reuters witness.

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The airport had reverted to checking boarding passes manually, the witness said

The IT outage has also reached GP surgeries across the UK, which said they are unable to access patient records or book appointments.

NHS England said the IT outage is “causing disruption in the majority of GP practices” in England but there is currently no known impact on 999 or emergency services.

Wole Shadare