Technical glitch causes global disruption of airlines, banks, businesses

A global technical system outage affected airline operations beginning Thursday, leading to some flight delays and cancellations at airports nationwide, including Ontario International Airport.

By Friday morning, more airlines had been affected as well as banks, supermarkets, companies, hospitals, emergency services and the London Stock Exchange, according to multiple news outlets, including Business insider, which later dubbed the incident the "largest IT outage in history."

Ontario International Airport officials said Friday that the global IT system outage affecting multiple airlines may cause disruptions for travelers, who should check with their airline for status updates.

DownDectector, a website that tracks user-reported internet outages, recorded growing outages in services at Visa, ADT security and Amazon, the Associated Press reported Friday.

News outlets reported that telecommunications providers and media broadcasters were also disrupted as they lost access to computer systems, NBC reported.

Visitors and workers at Green Valley Ranch resort-casino in Henderson Nevada reported an outage Thursday night. Staff members had to cash out players manually, which lead to long wait times, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Windows supported machines are reportedly failing to boot, with unconfirmed reports suggesting the problem is rooted with the software of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, Forbes reported.

Thursday's technical problem

Frontier Airlines on Thursday issued a ground stop due to a “technical problem” that left passengers waiting in terminals nationwide, the airline stated.

The grounding of Frontier Airlines' planes was lifted after the technical outage, the Federal Aviation Administration reported Thursday night. The FAA said the ground stop was canceled about 10:30 p.m. EST, ABC reported.

But airline problems persisted as American Airlines, Delta and United asked the Federal Aviation Administration for a global ground stoppage on all flights, according to an alert by the administration on Friday morning.

The FAA is telling air traffic controllers to tell airborne pilots that airlines are currently experiencing communication issues.

Meanwhile, flights in the air will stay in the air, but no American, United or Delta flights will take off, ABC reported.

Ontario International Airport

Ontario International Airport spokesman Steve Lambert told the Daily Press on Thursday night that the flight disruption at his airport was “only a Frontier issue," which affected no other airline. By Friday, the IT glitch spread to other airlines.

Photographer Brandy Carlos took to X on Thursday evening to share her sadness because she could not fly out of the Ontario International Airport due to “all the airlines,” except for Delta, being down with no flights at the airport.

Frontier issued a statement Thursday saying, “Our systems are currently impacted by a Microsoft outage, which is also affecting other companies. During this time booking, check-in, access to your boarding pass, and some flights may be impacted. We appreciate your patience.”

Sun Country Airlines took to X to say, “One of our information vendors is experiencing a global outage affecting multiple airlines. As a result, some of our services are temporarily unavailable. We are working with the third party to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and appreciate your patience.”

Sun Country Airlines does not fly out of Ontario, according to Lambert.

Roberto Contreras of Victorville told the Daily Press that his Thursday night flight was also delayed.

As of 7 p.m. on Thursday, two flights at Ontario International Airport had been canceled and 62 were delayed, according to FlightAware .

Flightrader24 posted to X that flights airborne on Thursday evening numbered 15 compared to 57 on Wednesday night.

San Bernardino Superior Court

San Bernardino Superior Court officials late Friday morning took to social media to announce that the global outage affecting Microsoft systems had impacted court operations.

All districts are open and operating, however, the disruption is causing significant delays and interruptions in daily functions, court officials stated.

Additionally, court staff was working to resolve these issues quickly. Contingency plans are being implemented to minimize disruptions and to ensure operations continue.

Further updates on court operations will be shared at sb-court-org.

Microsoft's cloud issue

The Arizona Republic reported that an outage affecting Microsoft's cloud computing platform, Azure, hampered airlines' operations.

Multiple users reached out to Azure's support account on X, @AzureSupport , for answers.

The account issued this statement in response to user complaints: "Hi, thank you for reaching out. We are aware that some of you are experiencing issues at the moment. Our team is looking into it and working on a resolution."

Most of the flights canceled Thursday evening at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport were Frontier flights. FlightAware counted seven canceled and 14 delayed Frontier flights at Sky Harbor.

The websites for Sun Country Airlines and Allegiant Air were not working Thursday evening, citing the Azure outage. Sun Country and Allegiant each had one flight delay out of Sky Harbor on Thursday.

Frontier's website was working, though it displayed the message, "Our systems are currently impacted by a Microsoft outage, which is also affecting other companies. We appreciate your patience."

Reach out to your airline if your flight was disrupted. Check your flight status before heading to the airport.

The Arizona Republic contributed to this story.

This story is developing and will be updated as more information becomes available.

Daily Press reporter Rene Ray De La Cruz may be reached at RDeLaCruz@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on X @DP_ReneDeLaCruz

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Technical glitch causes global disruption of airlines, banks, businesses