Microsoft Global Outage: More than 200 Airline services cancelled; banking, stock exchange, hospital and media sectors also affected

NEW DELHI: Air services in the country were thrown into disarray as online and digital services were halted due to a Microsoft outage. Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai airports came to a standstill. More than 200 services including 192 IndiGo flights were cancelled. Windows computers also hit the banking, stock exchange, hospital and media sectors.

Online booking and web check-in were disrupted since morning, which affected air travellers. Air India, Vistara, IndiGo, Akasa and SpiceJet services were suspended. Airports in major cities like Kochi, Patna, Goa, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Vijayawada, Raipur and Hyderabad were disrupted as passengers could not check-in. The services were conducted by directly checking the information of the passengers and writing the boarding passes. This created a long queue. The elderly and children suffered the most. Around 90 per cent services at Bangalore Terminal 1 and 160 services from Hyderabad were affected.

Airline companies and airports including Delhi had informed about the disruption of digital services through social media. Those who arrived without knowing this were the ones who were affected. There was no facility for those who came for emergency travel to book another flight and get a refund.

Union Civil Aviation Minister Rammohan Naidu has directed to prepare seats, water and food for passengers stranded at airports. The airline companies were also asked to report details.

Max Group's hospitals were also hampered by their use of Windows. The Mumbai Stock Exchange was also affected.

Union IT and Electronics Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said that the Microsoft issues have not affected the operations of the National Informatics Centre, which provides a digital platform for various ministries. The minister also said that Microsoft was contacted after problems were getting reported in India.

Remedial efforts continue

George Kurtz, President and CEO of CrowdStrike, stated that this was not a cyber attack and remedial efforts are ongoing. Mac and Linux software are not affected. Microsoft has also announced that some services will be down.

Elon Musk called the incident the biggest IT disaster of all time.

Wanna cry

The worst IT breach since the 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack. A virus that infected an older version of Windows infected three hundred thousand computers in 150 countries.

Flight services from Kochi also affected

NEDUMBASSERY: The disruption in Microsoft's services also affected services from Kochi International Airport. 13 flights were cancelled. Eight flights were delayed. IndiGo flights were mostly affected. An international service of Air India Express and a domestic service of Akash Air were delayed. IndiGo's three Hyderabad services, three Bengaluru services and their return journey, and Air India Express's one Bengaluru service were cancelled.

One flight each of IndiGo to Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kannur and Ahmedabad, Air India Express' Dubai flight and Aakash Air's Mumbai flight were delayed. Many flights were delayed by up to two hours.