Flights out of New York were paused temporarily early Friday morning after a global IT outage caused widespread delays and cancellations.
Thousands of flights were halted across the country, including at Westchester County Airport, where Catherine Cioffi, spokesperson for the county, said flights from American Airlines and Delta experienced some delays and cancellations as early as 7 a.m.
Delta issued a ground stop for all flights nationwide around 7 a.m., which has since been lifted for some flights, and American Airlines flights experienced some delays. Cioffi said JetBlue was the only airline that had some operational flights for the early morning. As of 4 p.m., only four flights at the airport remain delayed, while three are listed as canceled.
Related: Here's how the global Microsoft outage may, or may not, impact you
Tech news site Wired said the outage is mostly affecting Microsoft Windows systems , which seem to be connected to a corrupted software update from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company that provides cloud work protection.
New York’s chief cyber officer Colin Ahern said Friday that the state was aware of an issue affecting “Windows computers running a third party security software tool,” and that this was “not a security incident or cyberattack.”
The state was working with all parties, including local governments, to get impacted systems back online, he said.
“Our priority is to ensure all 911 systems across New York are operational and able to address emergency response needs,” Ahern said.
The state does not yet have a timeline for full restoration, he added, but Gov. Kathy Hochul was “closely monitoring impacts to critical infrastructure, including finance and transportation.”
As of 2 p.m. Friday, Hochul had left the NYS Information Technology Services office, where she had been briefed on the state's response to the global outage.
"911 systems are full operational," Hochul posted, "and we are continuing to work around the clock to restore services as soon as possible."
The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement on X/Twitter it was closely monitoring the situation and provided a list of airlines still experiencing delays.
According to the FAA website, LaGuardia Airport was closed from midnight to around 6 a.m. this morning, when impacts of the outage began to be felt. As of 8:30 a.m., a ground stop for multiple airlines at the airport remains in effect.
John F. Kennedy International Airport said in a statement on X/Twitter that the Port Authority, which runs JFK and Newark, was not affected by the global outage but some individual airlines, including Delta, American and United, were experiencing delays and cancellations.
The MTA announced around 7 a.m. that while Metro North trains and subways were unaffected, some MTA customer information systems were "temporarily offline."
Westchester County Executive George Latimer said at a press conference Friday that the county department of Information Technology was notified of the outage around 1:30 a.m. and worked through the early morning hours to repair county PCs.
He said PCs connected to the Westchester County government network were affected but many issues were quickly resolved and resumed as normal on Friday. Operations at Westchester County Police Department and other emergency went on as usual.
"We’ve been in contact with all of our liasons to provide a procedure to restore county PC to proper operating condition," Latimer said. "As we’re speaking here in the noon hour, some of this has been accomplished around the various departments, some of this has yet to be done."
Rockland County Executive Ed Day released a statement Friday morning saying some county systems were also minorly impacted but were repaired and back online earlier Friday morning.
"I want to assure the people of Rockland that we do not take these types of issues lightly and our ITS Department is regularly upgrading our IT Infrastructure," Day said.
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Albany International Airport posted on X Friday, saying airlines that operate out of the airport were experiencing computer issues related to the outage.
"Passengers may experience delays due to the airline computer issue," the post read.
https://twitter.com/AlbanyAirport/status/1814318264106807484
The Buffalo Niagara International Airport “didn’t have any major issues due to this outage” Friday, a Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority spokesperson said — there were a few cancellations and delays out of the airport Friday morning.
In Western New York, Erie County’s 911 services are still operational but the state system needed for Department of Motor Vehicle or Department of Social Services appointments in Erie County are “inoperable,” said County Executive Mark Poloncarz on X Friday.
“We will not be able to help you until the state system is back online,” he added. “Please do not come to any office for these services until we advise the system is back online.”
This is an ongoing story. Check back for more updates.
Contributing: USA TODAY and the USA TODAY Network's New York State team staff
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Widespread Microsoft outage causes backups at Westchester County Airport
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