Global tech outage knocks out Miami-area flights, some hospitals, cities, toll plazas

Travelers trying to get flights in and out of Miami International and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International airports Friday morning simmered in long lines as flights were canceled or delayed due to a global tech outage.

Residents of Miami and Hialeah, along with drivers trying to pay for services by accessing ATMs or using credit cards at rest stops along Florida’s Turnpike also quickly learned how the outage sent systems offline throughout South Florida.

The outage, attributed to CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm whose software is used by many industries to protect against hackers and breaches, crashed computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system after a system update in the predawn hours Friday morning went spectacularly awry.

Flights canceled, delayed at MIA, FLL

At Miami International Airport, long lines were forming at the American Airlines terminal as passengers dealt with canceled flights.

Among them, Jamie Pavlunenko, whose husband Alex had been waiting in line for three hours after their flight was canceled twice Friday morning.

“We’re all a mess because we’re just living out of suitcases and taking five-minute showers, and then we’re back to the airport,” said Jamie Pavlunenko.

The couple, traveling from Charleston with their 19-year-old son Greg and Jamie’s mother Barbara, were on their way to Sacramento.

Greg was due to compete in the America’s Strongest Teen competition Saturday, but the family isn’t sure whether they will make it on time.

“He’s really upset because this is his last year to qualify and he’s already missed the first part of the competition,” said Jamie.

The family began their journey in Charleston on Wednesday afternoon. They first flew to Charlotte, where their flight to Sacramento was canceled by American Airlines. The airline then rerouted them through Miami, where they were supposed to fly to Phoenix before ultimately reaching Sacramento. However, their 10:55 a.m. flight from Miami was canceled Friday, leaving them uncertain about their next steps and essentially stuck in airports since Wednesday afternoon.

The family says they found one flight with JetBlue, but tickets were costing up to $4,000 each.

MIA had 44 flights canceled and 169 flights delayed as of 1 p.m. Friday because of the outage, according to Greg Chin, communications director for the Miami-Dade Aviation Department.

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport was having a similar issue and stated on X, the social media platform: “An early morning system-wide technology issue is impacting some airline and passenger processing operations at U.S. airports, including #FLL. Flight delays are expected, so travelers should check with their airline for updated flight status before coming to #FLL.”

On Friday, FLL had at least 12 delays among arriving flights and nine delays among departures, according to FlightAware.

Sean and Sarah Gooden were in line Friday morning at American Airlines at MIA trying to get back to their home in Austin after their cruise. Their flight was canceled.

“We only just found out,” said Sean. “We’re trying to figure out what’s going on.”

Added Sarah: “They said there’s no more flights today to Austin, so I’m on the phone with American Airlines to see if they can put us in a hotel for the night.”

Other carriers in South Florida also noted problems.

United Airlines said it paused all overnight flights. The overnight software disruption affected “many separate systems, such as those used for calculating aircraft weight, checking in customers, and phone systems in our call centers,” the carrier said in an email.

“Flights resumed on Friday morning and we are working diligently to get our customers to their destinations,” the carrier said.

The airline suggested passengers check their flight status before heading to the airport on Friday. The airline also said it has a travel waiver that allows travelers to change their travel plans via United’s website or its app.

A senior Biden administration official said Friday afternoon that flight operations had resumed across the country, “although some congestion remains,” and 911 centers are once again able to receive and process calls.

“We are assessing impact to local hospitals, surface transportation systems, and law enforcement closely and will provide further updates as we learn more,” the official said, confirming the administration’s understanding that the outage was not due to a cyberattack.

President Joe Biden was briefed early Friday morning on the outage and continued receiving briefings throughout the day. The White House has offered CrowdStrike government support to respond to the events.

Ports not affected

At PortMiami on Friday there was no impact as of 10 a.m., said Suzy Trutie, public affairs, marketing and communications director. “All operations are normal,” she said.

Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale also reported no impact as of the same time in the morning, according to spokeswoman Joy Oglesby. On Friday, the port was only expecting cargo ships and “the privately owned terminal operators report no issues,” she said.

Government services

The city of Miami posted on X at 8:23 a.m. that the tech outage was affecting its online customer services.

Hialeah posted on X that it was experiencing issues affecting customer service with the building, business tax and code enforcement departments. But 911 communications, Hialeah police and fire departments were not affected and were fully operational.

Miami Beach was not affected by the outage, said city spokeswoman Melissa Berthier.

Coral Gables was largely unaffected, city spokeswoman Martha Pantin said.

Florida’s Turnpike

The Florida Department of Transportation, which runs Florida’s Turnpike, noted on social media how the outage was affecting its service plazas.

“Florida’s Turnpike Service Plazas are experiencing a service disruption that has affected onsite ATM’s, and the ability to accept credit card payments. Services are available for purchase with cash,’’ the department posted on X Friday morning.

911 calls still working at Miami, Miami-Dade police

The Miami Police Department said it was not impacted by the outage. Calls to 911, radio transmissions and computers were working fine, a department spokesman said.

Miami-Dade Police also said it has not been experiencing any issues from the global tech outage.

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,” said CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz on X.

How local hospitals are affected

The University of Miami and UHealth – University of Miami Health System had experienced connectivity issues across various applications, including UChart, the school said in an email that its IT department sent to staffers early Friday morning. The outage did not compromise UM data’s security and confidentiality, the alert noted.

By 11:45 a.m., UM’s IT department said it had brought the majority of its systems back online. All UHealth hospitals and clinics are open as scheduled and are under normal operations for patients.

Baptist Health South Florida said it was working to assess the impact of the global outage and to address any system issues “to ensure continuous care delivery,” said Baptist spokeswoman Gina Halley-Wright.

Baptist operates hospitals and urgent care clinics from Kendall to the Keys, as well as Coral Gables, South Miami and locations in Doral, Miami Beach, Westchester, Homestead and Miami Lakes. “At this time, most of our services and applications are operational,” Halley-Wright said.

Cleveland Clinic in Weston was seeing some impact, but it wasn’t affecting patients.

“Due to the global IT outage, some technology used by Cleveland Clinic is currently impacted,” the hospital said in an emailed statement. “Patient care is not affected, and we are continuing to provide care at all locations.”

Several hospitals reported its systems were operational and not affected by the outage.

“Mount Sinai Medical Center remains unaffected by the outage; we do not use CrowdStrike application, which is the root cause of the issue. All major systems are fully operational,”Mount Sinai said in a statement.

“Jackson Health System has not been substantially impacted by the global IT outage. Fortunately, this has not affected patient care in any of our hospitals,” Krysten Brenlla, Jackson’s media relations specialist said in an email.

Memorial Healthcare System, one of the public hospital systems in Broward County, said Friday it has not experienced any outages and is “serving the community as usual.”

HCA Florida Healthcare, which manages Mercy, Kendall, Aventura hospitals in Miami-Dade and University, Northwest, Woodmont Westside Hospitals in Broward, also said it had not been affected by the outage.

“Our health system has not been directly impacted by CrowdStrike’s technology issue and we are working with our vendors to understand any issues they may be facing,” HCA Florida Healthcare said in a statement. “We do not expect the incident to impact our ability to provide care to our patients.”

Steward Health Care System, which operates 31 hospitals across the country, including five in South Florida, also said none of its hospitals have been impacted by the outage.

Steward Health, which is in the midst of Chapter 11 bankruptcy and is under federal investigation for possible corruption , owns Palmetto General in Hialeah, North Shore Medical Center in North Miami-Dade, Coral Gables Hospital and Florida Medical Center in Lauderdale Lakes in South Florida.

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Deliveries

FedEx aircraft and vehicles are operating as normal and fedex.com is readily accessible, according to Sarah Rose Watkins, communications manager for FedEx.

“FedEx has activated contingency plans to mitigate impacts from a global IT outage experienced by a third-party software vendor,” Watkins said in an email. “We are working diligently to lessen any impact on service, and we appreciate our customers’ patience.”

Some UPS computer systems were affected. But the airline and its drivers were delivering for customers, said Christina Repassy, UPS’s spokeswoman, in a statement. “We are continuing to work to resolve all issues as quickly as possible; there may be some service delays.”

Supermarkets

Lakeland-based Publix and Jacksonville-based Winn-Dixie supermarkets are operating regularly.

Banks

While U.S. banks were mainly not affected, the banking system in the Bahamas was impacted, according the Central Bank of the Bahamas.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the governor of the Central Bank of The Bahamas also reported problems. “The international banking disruption is also having its impact on The Bahamas,” John Rolle said. “Some card payment services were offline and may still be. The Central Bank is monitoring the impact on local commercial banks.”

Miami Herald staff writers Jacqueline Charles, Michelle Marchante, Charles Rabin and Vinod Sreeharsha contributed to this report as did Herald writers Adlai Coleman and Joanne Haner, el Nuevo Herald reporter Verónica Egui Brito and Washington correspondent Michael A. Wilner.