Cebu Pacific, global airlines hit by Microsoft outage
A Cebu Pacific Air passenger plane takes off from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila on April 3, 2024. (Photo by TED ALJIBE / AFP)
MANILA, Philippines – The global outage of technology giant Microsoft has affected the system of budget carrier Cebu Pacific, the airline confirmed in a statement on Friday.
Cebu Pacific said it was experiencing “technical issues, reportedly related to technology provider CrowdStrike, which caused a global Microsoft outage.”
READ:Microsoft users worldwide report outages affecting banks, airlines
‘Large-scale’ IT outage hits companies worldwide
“The technical issue requires us to handle affected processes manually, potentially causing delays,” the Gokongwei-led airline said in a statement posted on X, adding that it was working to mitigate disruptions in its operations.
Meanwhile, flag carrier Philippine Airlines said its system was not affected by the outage.
The Microsoft outage has caused widespread disruption worldwide, grounding flights, derailing television broadcasts, and impacting telecommunications. Major US air carriers including Delta, United, and American Airlines grounded all flights on Friday due to communication issues, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Flights were also suspended at Berlin Brandenburg airport in Germany due to a “technical problem,” causing cancellations and delays.READ:
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Airports in Spain and Hong Kong reported disruptions linked to the Microsoft outage. In Australia, the UK’s biggest rail operator warned of possible train cancellations due to IT issues, with large queues forming at Sydney Airport.Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator attributed the “large-scale technical outage” to a “third-party software platform,” and there was no evidence of hacker involvement.
The UK’s Sky News and Australian broadcaster ABC experienced significant disruptions, and Australian supermarket chains faced issues with self-checkout terminals. New Zealand reported problems with banks and parliamentary computer systems.
Microsoft stated it was taking “mitigation actions” in response to the service issues, and the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike could not be immediately reached for comment.
Experts noted the problem might be linked to CrowdStrike’s Falcon, an endpoint detection and response platform. The global impact of the Microsoft outage was likely to be “enormous,” according to cybersecurity researchers.
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