Microsoft outage: how Australian airports, banks and supermarkets are affected by a major IT meltdown

Airports, banks, supermarkets and media outlets were among the major Australian businesses thrown into chaos on Friday after Microsoft systems were hit by a global IT outage.

The Albanese government convened a meeting of emergency authorities as well as representatives from the major supermarkets, banks, airlines and other key industries on Friday night to respond after Windows workstations were hit by the “blue screen of death”.

The home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, said in a statement on Friday night that the problem was caused by a software update linked to the cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike. She said the company had “issued a fix” but it could still take “some time to resolve”.

Related: IT outage: banks, airlines and media hit by issues linked to Windows PCs

Airports

Some flight screens at Sydney airport and other airports across the country went blank on Friday evening, with Virgin Australia warning passengers to expect cancellations and delays.

Melbourne airport said in a post on X that Jetstar was “experiencing a significant outage” while Qantas and Virgin were “slowly processing passengers”. Jetstar’s international arm and the Singaporean carrier Scoot were also experiencing ongoing issues.

A Virgin spokesperson said the company was aware of a “large-scale IT outage impacting multiple airlines and other businesses which is having an impact on our operations”.

“We are working to resolve this issue as soon as possible.”

• Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Banks

The Commonwealth Bank confirmed some PayID payment transactions were affected, while it is understood customers at ANZ were also having trouble with some transfers.

“We know some customers have been unable to make PayID payments,” a Commonwealth Bank spokesperson said. “If you are unable to use PayID, you’re still able to make payments between your accounts or pay someone using their BSB and account number.”

At Westpac, there was “no impact to any Westpac customer-facing applications”, a spokesperson said.

Media

Media outlets were also affected, with presenters on the ABC using their phones to read the news after the teleprompters went down, while in Melbourne, Nine News journalists were forced to improvise the start of its 4pm bulletin amid problems with their prepared news packages.

Sky News had similar problems, with its services reduced at one stage because of the outage.

Supermarkets

Payment systems in stores have been impacted, with customers at some Coles and Woolworths stores saying they have not been able to tap their cards in store.

One Liquorland employee said they were turning customers away because their system was down. “We are shut, we are telling all these people to go away.”

A Coles spokesperson said on Friday evening that the company was trying to get the system operational again.

“We are working quickly to get our systems back up and running and will provide further updates as we know more,” they said.

At Woolworths, “all stores across the country except for six are open and trading”, it said in a statement on Friday evening,

“In some cases, customers may find less registers available than normal so we’re grateful for their patience,” a spokesperson said.

“A small number of online orders have been unable to be fulfilled and those customers have been contacted.”

Several NSW police systems have gone down but the triple-zero service remains operational nationwide.

Anthony Albanese said he understood Australians were “concerned about the outage that is unfolding globally and affecting a wide range of services”.

“My government is working closely with the national cyber security coordinator,” the prime minister said.

“There is no impact to critical infrastructure, government services or triple-0 services at this stage.”