From travelers to hair salons, East Tennessee businesses impacted by global outage

ALCOA, Tenn. (WATE) — People traveling Friday were hit with major delays and cancellations after a global technical outage grounded all flights early Friday morning. The outage also impacted several banks, businesses, governments, hospitals and media outlets across the world.

“We weren’t sure what to expect and when we got here it was a real pain,” said one traveler, Kurt Kendall.

Kendall, like many passengers at McGee Tyson Airport, was left waiting hours on the status of their flight.

“We’re keeping our fingers crossed. We’ve had two delays on Google’s flights because I haven’t updated anyone here. So, we’re hoping that we make the 3:25 but it’s not looking very promising,” said a woman flying home to Florida, Michelle Burgan.

Due to the outage, the FAA issued a total ground stop, landing fights across the nation early Friday morning.

“We know that overnight when this first began all flights had landed successfully, minus one at McGee Tyson Airport, that flight was held in Texas,” said McGee Tyson Airport spokesperson, Becky Huckaby. “Otherwise, the aircrafts are on the ground and ready to start flying out this morning. And most of the flights are either delayed or they’re making prior arrangements or other arrangements for passengers who are in line now to rebook.”

According to Huckaby, not only were flights impacted but the airport was as well, including internet access and parking.

“We have several things that we’re working on to restore on our end in the airport facility, including the flight information displays that are in the terminal and on our website that provide information,” she said.

Outside of the airport, the outage was felt by many area businesses as well, forcing them to use cash only.

“I can’t get any technical support. I’ve reached out via email, which of course is no response. And then absolutely made phone calls. And they can’t help me because they can’t access what they need to access through any portals or anything like that in order to help me and assist me in the issues that I’m having,” said Janet’s Place Salon owner, Janet Williams.

Williams said if it wasn’t for her old-school booking, she wasn’t sure how she would have operated. However, it served as a reminder to always have a backup plan.

“I’m an old-school hairdresser, so I still do things literally by the book,” she said. “I use a book, I use a pencil, I use a phone, and a lot of the younger generation coming up does everything via their apps and mobile devices and whatnot. And it’s concerning because that would shut your business down.”

Pilot, which is headquartered in Knoxville, also shared that they were experiencing “some disruptions as a result of the global CrowdStrike issue” They added that their stores are “open, fueling and continue to serve guests across North America with minimal disruptions. We are working to resolve any outages across our systems as quickly as possible.”

The state’s Department of Safety and Homeland Security shared that local Driver Services Centers may be unable to process transactions while the cities of Knoxville and Sevierville reported technical disruptions that they were working to fix.

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