A massive IT outage led to chaos in airports this morning, causing many cancellations and delays in Western North Carolina - and thousands more across the planet. Other industries, from banks to hospitals, also suffered from the outage.
The IT outage is linked to cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which is used by over half of Fortune 500 companies, the U.S. firm said in a promotional video this year. While the issue has apparently been rectified, disruptions are continuing in many areas.
Flight tracking website FlightAware showed almost 3,000 cancellations and around 27,000 delays by 11 a.m. today. Though airlines including American and United had resumed operations by 5:30 a.m. this morning, representatives said they expected schedule disruptions to continue throughout the day.
Asheville Regional Airport wasn't immune to the effects of the outage. Here's what to know about disruptions in WNC.
Mission Hospital outages?
While some hospitals have reported difficulties due to the IT outage, spokesperson Nancy Lindell told the Citizen Times in an email that Mission Health has not been directly impacted.
"All Mission Health hospitals and clinics remain open and MAMA air and ground services are fully operational," Lindell said. "However, some of our technology vendors have been impacted requiring a few procedures to be rescheduled. The limited number of patients impacted by this will be contacted directly."
Are county services impacted?
A news release from Buncombe County spokesperson Lillian Govus said that core services were not impacted, and that "911, Emergency Services, Libraries, and Election Services are running without interruptions."
However, the news release said that some vendors the county works with were impacted, affecting the following:
- Mountain Mobility: Fixed Trailblazer routes are running without impacts; however, if you've scheduled an on-demand or paratransit trip, please call 828-250-6750 to confirm that trip.
- Permits: Lobby kiosks are non-functional at this time.
- Air quality index reporting.
- Sporadic devices: Some laptops and kiosks are requiring IT staff to conduct a manual update to restore operating systems.
FedEx delays
An alert was issued on the FedEx website in response to the global IT outage. The message said that FedEx has "activated contingency plans to mitigate impacts," but warned that packages set to be delivered July 19 may be subject to delays.
Check the FedEx service alerts page for any updates, or track your shipment at FedEx.com.
UPS delays
Similarly to FedEx, UPS said on its website that, while the network is still operating and delivering in all areas, there is a potential for delivery delays. Contingency plans are in place to help with speedy deliveries, but the UPS Service Guarantee will not apply to shipments affected by this event.
Track your package on the UPS website.
Asheville Airport delays, cancellations
Citizen Times reporting today showed that Allegiant Airlines has canceled all flights before noon. However, Asheville Airport spokesperson Tina Kinsey also told the Citizen Times that America, Delta and United were checking passengers onto flights. Kinsey still anticipates "there will be lots of changes throughout the day."
An Asheville Airport post on X, formerly Twitter, advised passengers to check the status of flights online for the most up-to-date information.
As for Asheville Regional Airport, the following cancellations of flights scheduled out of Asheville were listed as of 11 a.m.:
- Delta - Atlanta Flight 3077
- American - Washington-DCA Flight 5446
- Allegiant - Denver Flight 231
- Delta - New York-LGA Flight 5124
- Allegiant - Chicago-Midway Flight 252
- Delta - Atlanta Flight 3057
- Allegiant - Punta Gorda Flight 217
- Allegiant - Orlando Sanford Flight 3153
- American- New York-LGA Flight 4418
Additionally, the following four flights have been delayed:
- Delta - Atlanta Flight 2853
- United - Chicago O Hare Flight 4632
- United - Chicago O Hare Flight 4637
- American - Chicago O Hare Flight 3963
Is Microsoft Global outage fixed?
A statement from CrowdStrike said a recent content update had a defect that impacted Microsoft's Windows Operating System. The incident was reportedly "not a security incident or cyberattack."
"The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed," said a statement from CrowdStrike. Microsoft said "the underlying cause has been fixed," but that residual impacts continue to affect some of its Microsoft 365 apps and services.
Iris Seaton is the trending news reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at iseaton@citizentimes.com.
Local North Carolina State
Most Popular
Comments / 0