Flights canceled, delayed at Jacksonville International Airport after worldwide tech outage

Travelers flying out of Jacksonville International Airport today should check the status of their flight before heading to the airport on the city’s Northside.

That’s because a worldwide technology outage is affecting airlines, media companies, banks, and telecom firms around the world this morning.

Overnight U.S.-based airlines American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Frontier Airlines, United Airlines and others grounded flights. It was not immediately clear whether the grounding of the flights was related to a Microsoft 365 cloud-services-related outage that had affected some air carriers.

In Jacksonville, the airport is “open and operational,” JAX officials said in an early-morning post on X , formerly Twitter. “We are currently working through some contingency procedures and assessing flight disruptions. Travelers with early morning flights need to check with their airline for the most up-to-date information regarding travel itineraries.”

As of 8:30 a.m., a handful of flights departing Jacksonville had been canceled while many others were delayed, including at least one by more than three hours.

In addition to some flight cancellations and delays, travelers may face another issue: fewer food and drink options while waiting for their planes to depart.

"Due to computer-related issues associated with some food and beverage vendors at the airport, food services may be limited in the terminal," JAX posted on X. "If you are scheduled to fly out in the next few hours, please plan accordingly."

How many flights are affected by the global outage?

According to flight-tracking website FlightAware , more than 5,000 flights have been affected by the outage, including more than 1,400 flights canceled and more than 3,600 flights delayed as of 10 a.m. Friday.

Several inbound flights to Jacksonville have been canceled, including two United flights from Newark and Washington's Dulles airports; an American flight from Miami; two Delta flights from Detroit and Minneapolis, according to updates on JAX's website.

For some Jacksonville flyers traveling to and through American hubs in Dallas and Charlotte, two early morning flights were canceled. And some American flights to Miami and Washington's Reagan airports, too, had been canceled. United canceled a flight to Newark.

Arrival and departure times for several other flights on Friday were pushed back.

Travelers were urged to check with their airline for the latest information regarding travel itineraries, the airport said.

How to check the status of your flight

American: Travelers can check their flight's status on the American Airlines app or at https://www.aa.com/travelInformation/flights/status

Delta: Travelers can check their flight's status on the Delta app or at https://www.delta.com/flightstatus/search

United: Travelers can check their flight's status on the United app under the My United section or at https://united.com/flightstatus

Airlines offer waivers to affected travelers

Travelers are in for a rough day, but airlines are doing what they can to provide extra flexibility to those affected by the outage.

• American issued a waiver for affected travelers covering all of its U.S. hubs.
• Delta : Delta resumed operations just before 8 a.m. ET, but said it expects disruptions to continue throughout the day. The airline issued a waiver allowing all passengers traveling Friday to rebook their flights.
• United : In a statement, United said it was resuming flight operations as of 6:20 a.m. ET, but expects delays and cancellations throughout the day. The airline issued a travel waiver for select airports so passengers can make changes if their flights are affected, though a United spokesperson told USA TODAY that nearly all of the airline's flights depart or arrive in one of the airports covered by the waiver.
• Spirit : The airline issued a waiver allowing customers who are booked to fly Friday or Saturday through any airport in its network to change their flights at no additional charge.

What caused the global outage?

CrowdStrike , a U.S. cybersecurity firm that advertises being used by over half of Fortune 500 companies, said one of its recent content updates had a defect that impacted Microsoft's Windows Operating System, adding the incident was "not a security incident or cyberattack," USA TODAY reported .

"The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed," said a statement from CrowdStrike. The company's CEO, George Kurtz, apologized for the disruptions in an interview with NBC's Today . Microsoft, meanwhile, said "the underlying cause has been fixed," but residual impacts will affect some of its Microsoft 365 apps and services.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Kim Hjelmgaard, Christopher Cann, Zach Wichter and Josh Rivera of USA TODAY contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Flights canceled, delayed at Jacksonville International Airport after worldwide tech outage