Anxious chatter filled the Pittsburgh International Airport on Friday morning into the early afternoon as hundreds of people milled about the terminal, anxiously waiting to hear updates about their delayed or canceled flights .
Boarding lines — some over 50 people long — stood at a standstill as airport employees manning the gates struggled to access their computer systems . No one was allowed to board flights until the system verified them — but with it failing to load, angry passengers were left to wait.
Some sat on the floor, while others found empty seats and camped out near their gates. Some had been there for several hours, their original flight departure times long past.
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Above the doors to the gates, screens normally showcasing flight information instead displayed a light blue error message. "Recovery," the screens read in large letters. "It looks like Windows didn't load correctly."
The Pittsburgh International Airport, like many other airports around the world, had fallen victim to the massive IT outage caused by a cybersecurity firm called CrowdStrike, which issued a faulty update to users, crashing the systems of airlines, banks and even hospitals.
The screens displaying generic flight departure and arrival information, which were still operational, changed constantly — one minute, a flight was listed as "On Time," but the next, a new departure time in a popping yellow font appeared. Dozens of flights were simply marked "Canceled" in bright red font.
Follow our live updates on the outage here .
When I arrived at the terminal, I headed straight to the flight check-in station, where a short line snaked through the cordons. It moved slowly — with the systems down and not fully rebooted, the check-in system was loading at the speed of a snail.
United, the airline through which my flight had been booked, was one of the major companies impacted by the outage. Delta, American and British Airways also seemed to be experiencing outages, with long, slow lines at the baggage drop-off stations congesting airport traffic.
Finally, when I got to the front of the line and it was my turn to print my boarding pass, the system buffered for a few seconds and then allowed me to proceed. Soon enough, a paper ticket was in my hand, and I headed toward the security checkpoint.
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Above the screening stations, I carefully read screens showing departure times and found my flight. Somehow, miraculously, my flight read, "On Time." That wouldn't last.
I got through TSA and then made my way to my gate. The screen above the kiosk was working, but it had information for a different flight — I began to worry.
Taking a walk through the terminal, I checked some other gates, but none of the screens had any flight information — just that error message in light blue. I found another set of screens listing flight departures and looked for my flight.
To my despair, it read that it was now departing nearly two hours late. But it wasn't canceled, which gave me a flicker of hope. I opted to grab some food and then found an empty seat in a corner near the gate.
I watched for updates for the next several minutes, checking the United website and watching for texts about my flight.
About half an hour later, the moment I had been dreading arrived — I got a text that said my flight had been canceled altogether. A tinge of anxiety began to permeate my thoughts, but I told myself it was going to be alright.
I'm from Western Pennsylvania, after all, and I have friends and family near Pittsburgh I could stay with for a while until I could find a new flight.
About 30 minutes after that, however, I got another text telling me that my flight was not, in fact, canceled — just delayed. It provided the same time I had seen on the departure screens earlier, just under two hours after the original departure time.
Others around me had received the same text, and a sense of hope filled the air as over a dozen people anxiously awaiting their flights home or elsewhere got a bit of good news. But some told me their United apps still listed the flight as canceled — no one seemed to have any definitive information, and with systems still down, the airport staff didn't have any to provide, either.
A family seated behind me anxiously chattered about what they might do. They toyed with attempting to book a new flight through a different airline — Southwest, perhaps — or with renting a car and making the hours-long drive to their final destination.
They opted for the second of those choices, then discussed how they were going to get their luggage — they had checked some baggage, but they had just canceled their reservation on the flight.
As the family got up, packed their things and headed toward baggage claim to see if they could find someone to help them, they reassured their young daughter that everything was going to be alright — they were going to take a road trip, and she was going to be able to see so many cool things along the way. For the night, they'd find a hotel to stay.
A few minutes later, one of the airport employees was chatting with a woman booked on one of the flights scheduled to depart from my gate that had been delayed. Loud enough for everyone to hear, she said, "It's canceled, not delayed. It's canceled. We're having everyone rebook their flights."
Unsure of whether the woman had meant my flight or the other delayed one before it, I went up to the kiosk to ask about my flight's status. After waiting in line for nearly an hour, one of the employees confirmed what I had been dreading — my flight was, in fact, canceled.
But, she quickly told me I had been booked on one scheduled for Saturday morning and printed me a new boarding pass. I grabbed my bags and headed for the exit, hoping that Saturday's flight wouldn't suffer the same fate as the one on Friday.
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