IT: Airline computer systems go down. Flights delayed/cancelled

Aircraft worldwide have been affected by an IT outage caused by a fault in the CrowdStrike Falcon security platform.

The outage has affected computer systems worldwide in a range of industries.

In Australia, Qantas Group systems have been affected, resulting in Jetstar flights in Australia and New Zealand being cancelled until 2 am on Saturday. Thousands of the airline’s customers have been affected, resulting in airport chaos.

According to an article in the SMH, a spokesperson is quoted as saying:

“Our teams are working on recovery options and we will contact customers with updates as soon as our systems are back online.”

Jetstar Spokesperson

Affected customers should confirm that their flights are operating before heading to the airport. Jetstar will also offer rebookings or refunds for the affected flights.

Qantas Sydney Domestic

Unlike Jetstar, the Qantas Domestic Terminal (T3) has not been badly affected by the IT Microsoft/CrowStrike outage. Flight schedules remain largely unchanged.

However, self-service check-in facilities were shut down from 6:00 p.m., and the digital boarding pass system seems to continue to be affected.

Qantas has been using staffed check-in facilities to provide checked baggage services and boarding passes since these internal systems seem to have been largely unaffected

2PAXfly Takeout

Expect some residual scheduling and IT problems to persist into Saturday, 20 July, at Jetstar.

Although the original tech issues seem to be resolved, rebooting and updating systems could take time and offer additional complications.

Fingers crossed that all will be right in Australia for when flights recommence on Saturday. If you are overseas, check with your airline or airport, as worldwide systems have been affected.

I wouldn’t want to be a CrowdStrike executive at the moment.