Tech outage affects passengers at Cherry Capital Airport

TRAVERSE CITY -- Millions of airline passengers, including people flying out of Traverse City’s Cherry Capital Airport were affected by a world-wide internet outage. The outage was experienced by Microsoft and impacted different services, including airlines.

Passengers at Cherry Capital were left unable to check in to their flights.

To be clear, it was problem for the airlines, not the airport itself.

“At 4:00 this morning, we received notification that some of the airline tenants were having some computer problems. So with that, we immediately did an inventory of all airport systems. So make sure our safety and security systems were all intact and operating fine. Our next step then was to talk with the FAA to make sure all those systems were fine. And then the TSA. So once we knew the safety security systems of the airport were all intact and that we then started to learn that it wasn’t a cyber attack, it was a computer update,” said Cherry Capital Airport CEO, Kevin Klein

The outage was traced back to Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity firm which is known for its advanced threat intelligence and endpoint protection. It affected systems airlines use to check in passengers before boarding a flight, causing delays.

“We’re starting to see the system get back to our working towards normal. But what we’ll see is that ripple effect, just like our flights were delayed starting now. Those other airplanes that we get later in the day will be delayed,” said Klein.

Even though operations at Cherry Capital have not been affected, the airport worked to get passengers on their flights. “We’ve been trying to help coordinate, get passengers to the right places so that when we did board that, they were all ready to go right when the airlines could get going,” said Klein.

Passengers were scrambling to figure out their own plans as flight delays or rebookings which could take hours or even days

“Well, flights are either delayed or canceled. We’re trying to rebook, but every time we try to, nothing’s working. And I have two babies in the car and I’ve no hotel room, so I’m trying to figure out where to go right now. So that’s why I have come to the airport and see if that’s not any further,” said passenger Heather Sharpo.

Another passenger we talked to, Darrell Grant, found out about the outage during his flight, but a pilot made sure to let passengers know the plane was safe, “Our pilot got on and explained what the what the issue is. It’s it’s the communication with the plane to when they land to the tower and stuff is what they had issues about. So whether it’s true or not, he made us feel comfortable.”