Historic global tech outage affecting Reno-Tahoe International Airport flights

A global tech outage described as the largest in history caused flight delays and cancellations at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

Two departing flights — one on Spirit Airlines to Las Vegas and another on American Airlines to Dallas-Fort Worth — were canceled Friday morning. Ten departing flights were also rescheduled for different times on Friday.

One arriving flight on American Airlines from Dallas-Fort Worth was also canceled with more than 20 additional flights rescheduled with different times.

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While the effect on Reno’s airport was not as serious as other cities, the delays and cancellations at several major airports could ripple into our area, said Nicolle Staten, public affairs manager for Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

“(Reno-Tahoe International Airport) is seeing some impact but it's minimal and all operations are continuing normally,” Staten said.

“We will continue to monitor as we expect delays to happen throughout the day due to the bigger impacts at other airports and their reported ground stops.”

What caused the global IT outage affecting airports nationwide?

The outage was triggered by an update involving cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, which then affected Microsoft systems and started to ripple worldwide.

The issue involved “a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts” and does not affect Mac or Linux systems, according to a tweet from Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz made early Friday.

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

The issue affected not just airports but banks, media services , hospitals and other consumer platforms such as Microsoft's Xbox Live gaming service. The list of affected banks include Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo.

Staten advised passengers to reach out to their airline for the latest information about their flights. Here is the contact information for all airlines operating at Reno-Tahoe International Airport .

“Passengers should continue to arrive at least 2 hours before their scheduled flight and check flight statuses directly with their airline,” Staten said.

This article originally appeared on Reno Gazette Journal: Historic global tech outage affecting Reno-Tahoe International Airport flights