The world has been hit by an IT issue today relating to Microsoft systems which has had a major impact on airlines.

In the UK July 19, 2024, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium was due to be the busiest day of the year so far with over 3,214 departures – the highest number of daily departures since October 2019. However, currently Cirium states that over 1,000 flights have been cancelled globally so far, though this is the total number and not all may be due to the IT issue. United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines have stopped all flights and other carriers have been impacted as well.

Some airport systems have also been affected, for example Sydney Airport put out a statement saying: “A global technical outage has impacted some airline operations and terminal services. Flights are currently arriving and departing however there may be some delays throughout the evening. We have activated our contingency plans and deployed additional staff to our terminals.”

According to BBC News “Microsoft says it is taking ‘mitigation action’ to deal with ‘the lingering impact’ of the outage.”

It is too early to assess the full impact of this IT issue on aviation, so we will monitor the situation and update this story as a clearer picture emerges.