Holidaymakers have been warned that travel disruption may continue this weekend as airlines recover from being hit by one of the biggest IT crashes in recent years.
Passengers had their travel plans ruined on Friday as thousands of flights were cancelled internationally after a botched software upgrade hit Microsoft’s Windows operating system. The incident caused havoc across a number of services, with hospital appointments cancelled, payroll systems seized up and TV channels going off air due to the outage.
More than 5,078 flights, 4.6% of those scheduled, were cancelled around the world on Friday. By the evening, 338 flights in and out of the UK – 167 departures and 171 arrivals – had been cancelled, according to the aviation analytics firm Cirium.
After crowds swelled at airports on Friday as operators struggled to keep services on track, travel chaos is expected to continue throughout the weekend. At least 45 flights in the UK had been cancelled on Saturday.
The travel association Abta urged holidaymakers to check with providers if there were “any extra steps” they may need to take.
A spokesperson said: “If you are heading off on holiday this weekend – by whatever means – it’s advisable to check with your travel provider if there are any extra steps you need to take, as some businesses are continuing to feel the impact of Friday’s IT outage.”
Multiple US airlines and airports across Asia said they were now resuming operations, with check-in services restored in Hong Kong, South Korea and Thailand, and mostly back to normal in India, Indonesia and at Singapore’s Changi airport as of Saturday afternoon.
“The check-in systems have come back to normal [at Thailand’s five major airports],” the Airports of Thailand president, Keerati Kitmanawat, told reporters at Don Mueang airport in Bangkok. “There are no long queues at the airports as we experienced yesterday.”
Atlanta airport, the busiest in the world by passenger traffic, said it had not been affected by the outage but was working with “airline partners” who were.
While some airports halted all flights, airline staff in others resorted to manual check-ins for passengers, leading to long lines and frustrated travellers.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) initially ordered all flights grounded “regardless of destination”, although airlines later said they were re-establishing their services and working through the backlog.
India’s largest airline, IndiGo, said operations had been “resolved”, in a statement posted on X.
“While the outage has been resolved and our systems are back online, we are diligently working to resume normal operations, and we expect this process to extend into the weekend,” the carrier said on Saturday.
A passenger told Agence France-Presse that the situation was returning to normal at Delhi airport with only slight delays in international flights.
The low-cost carrier AirAsia said it was still trying to get back online, and had been “working around the clock towards recovering its departure control systems (DCS)” after the global outage. It recommended passengers arrive early at airports and be ready for “manual check-in” at airline counters.
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Chinese state media said Beijing’s airports had not been affected.
In Europe, major airports including Berlin, which had suspended all flights earlier on Friday, said departures and arrivals were resuming.
The software update that caused global havoc came from the US cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, which left many workers facing a “blue screen of death” as their computers failed to start.
GP practices said they could not see patient records or book appointments, and pharmacy services were also affected.
But on Saturday, Nick Kaye, the chair of the National Pharmacy Association, which represents independent community pharmacies in the UK, said: “Systems are by and large back online and medicine deliveries have resumed in many community pharmacies today after the global IT outage.
“However, yesterday’s outage will have caused backlogs and we expect services to continue to be disrupted this weekend as pharmacies recover.
“We urge people to be patient when visiting their local pharmacy and some may be still prioritising those patients with emergency prescriptions from their GP surgery.”