Airports fill with long lines and broken blue screens following cancellations and delays due to global IT outage

Airports devolved into scenes of chaos early Friday after ground stops were issued because of a massive IT outage felt across the globe.

Long lines, crowded gates and agitated passengers became common scenes at major airports. At John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Los Angeles International Airport, monitors usually displaying flight departure times were replaced with malfunctioning blue screens.

More than 7,300 flights were delayed within, to or out of the United States as of 2:30 p.m. ET, and over 2,400 were canceled, according to FlightAware data. Globally, there have been over 34,000 delays and more than 3,800 cancellations, according to the tracker.

In the U.S., the airports experiencing the greatest cancellations and delays are Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, New York’s LaGuardia, Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, followed by Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, according to FlightAware data based on origin airport.

American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, the biggest carriers in the U.S., all issued ground stops early Friday.

Delta said in a statement, “All Delta flights are paused as we work through a vendor technology issue,” and by 8 a.m. said it “has resumed some flight departures.”

Meanwhile, United said flights resumed Friday morning after it paused all departures overnight. The airline said it will “carefully ramp-up our recovery over the course of the day,” adding, “we are working diligently to get our customers to their destinations.”

American said as of 5 a.m., “We have been able to safely re-establish our operation.”

JetBlue said its operations remain normal and its systems were not affected by the outage.

Delays in some areas were topping six hours around noon.

At Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the busiest airport in the world, there was an average 374-minute ground delay, or a little over six hours, around noon, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. That was later updated to 174 minutes at around 2:30 p.m., or about three hours.

In New York, JFK is experiencing an average ground delay time of 171 minutes and LaGuardia Airport an average 129-minute ground delay. Miami International airport was experiencing a departure delay time of 45 minutes as of 2:30 p.m. Meanwhile Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport had an average 104-minute ground delay around noon, which was later lowered to about 15 minutes by 2:30 p.m.

The FAA said Friday that it’s working with affected airlines and airports, noting that air traffic control computers are not affected by the outage.

The outage, affecting major businesses, police forces, public transportation and banks, was caused by an information technology glitch due to an issue with the Microsoft cloud. Microsoft said shortly before 7 a.m. that the underlying cause was fixed, but “residual impact is continuing to affect some Microsoft 365 apps and services.”

Microsoft said another issue is the “CrowdStrike Falcon agent,” a cybersecurity platform used by businesses globally that is separate from Microsoft. CrowdStrike Chief Executive George Kurtz said the company is working with customers “impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” while noting “this is not a security incident or cyberattack.”

Airports also warned of flight delays and cancellations, including Tampa International Airport, Denver International Airport, and Belfast International Airport in Northern Ireland.

The outage is now a test of patience for passengers as airports fill with extremely long lines.

Colby Black, 45, took the delays at JFK Airport in stride, even though he wasn’t sure when his rescheduled flight to Los Angeles would take off.

“It says 8 a.m. on the board, but 9 a.m. on my app, so who knows,” he said of the flight, which was originally set to depart at 6 a.m.

“I’m just tired. I want to sleep,” said Black, who woke up at 3 a.m. “But otherwise, yeah, it happens. … There’s not much I can do about it. If I can’t affect it, why bother?”

Samantha C., 35, who was at JFK with her infant son, said she hadn’t slept the night before.

“I’m still up, running on no sleep,” said the mother, who was seated at an airport bar stool beside a heavy pour of chilled white wine. She wasn’t originally planning to order a preflight drink.

“Hell no. I got to the airport at 4 o’clock this morning,” she said.

But her 7:05 a.m. flight to Florida was delayed three hours, causing major headaches for both her and the family members who were set to pick her up.