Misery for holidaymakers as 4,000 flights grounded by IT outage that sparked chaos, and recovery 'could cost billions'

19 July 2024, 20:18 | Updated: 19 July 2024, 22:36

Over 4,000 flights have been cancelled because of the IT outage that sparked worldwide chaos on Friday, as an expert warned that a full recovery could take "thousands of hours" and "billions of dollars".

The world came to a halt early on Friday as technology across the globe crashed, cancelling trains, grounding flights and causing chaos in hospitals, schools and shops.

As of 5pm UK time, 4,295 flights had been cancelled worldwide, according to researchers at aviation analytics firm Cirium.

"This equates to 3.9 per cent of all scheduled flights globally [with] 143 flights cancelled departing UK airports so far (4.6 per cent of all scheduled departures), with a further 142 inbound arrivals cancelled," they added.

Gatwick, the UK's second-biggest airport, said on Friday evening that it expects most of its flights to operate as normal on Saturday.

Heathrow said earlier on Friday evening that the majority of flights are taking off and arriving as planned. Stansted and Manchester Airports said that check-in systems were still affected, which was causing longer queues than usual.

But a spokesperson warned: "Some delays and cancellations will however continue this evening and over the weekend. We strongly advise passengers to check with their airline for the latest updates."

The specific cause of the global IT failure relates to an update implemented on Windows devices by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

And while the cybersecurity company has told users it has fixed the main cause of the mass outage, experts have warned delays, cancellations and other bugs could take "thousands of hours".

Andrew Peck, a cybersecurity expert at Loughborough University, said that some of the critical infrastructure affected by the outage might be in remote areas and will need to be accessed.

Hundreds of thousands of machines would need to be visited and fixed in person by IT workers, he told CNN.

This could take "thousands of hours and millions, potentially billions of dollars," he warned.

Earlier, researcher Kevin Beaumont explained how the systems would need to be started in ‘Safe Mode’, to remove the faulty update.

Read more: Global IT outage LIVE: CrowdStrike outage could be ‘biggest cyber incident in history’ as GP surgeries and banks hit

He added: "This is incredibly time-consuming and will take organisations days to do at scale. Essentially we have one of the world’s highest impact IT incidents caused by a cyber-security vendor."

Meanwhile, CrowdStrike boss George Kurtz warned it might take “some time” before services return to normal.

He told NBC it was the firm's "mission" to make sure every one of its customers recovers from the outage.

But he warned, despite a fix being rolled out, "it could be some time" before services returned to normal.

"We're deeply sorry for the impact that we've caused to customers, to travellers, to anyone affected by this, including our companies," he said.

“Many of the customers are rebooting the system, and it’s coming up, and it’ll be operational because we fixed it on our end,” he said.

“We’re just trying to sort out where the negative interaction was,” he added of the buggy update that affected Windows PCs.

Tesla and X owner Elon Musk went as far as to brand today’s outage the “biggest IT failure ever.”

While CrowdStrike says it has issued a fix, this will be applied to each device separately, and some have claimed it to be ineffective.

Microsoft has even advised users to restart their devices as many as 15 times in a bid to repair this issue.

It it is likely the effects of today’s outage will continue at least into next week for holidaymakers.

Airline Ryanair has even taken the step of sending travellers home from airports as flights continue to remain grounded.

43 UK departures have been cancelled so far today.

Ryanair told passengers: "If your flight has been cancelled, we kindly request that you leave the airport as the IT outage means we cannot currently assist passengers at the airport."

Edinburgh Airport added: "Anyone whose flight is cancelled is asked to please leave the airport and contact their airline directly."

The chaos caused by today’s outage has underscored the need for stronger protections in the future, experts have said.

Friday is the busiest day of the year so far for UK air travel with 3,214 departing flights as thousands of families embark on summer holidays at the end of the academic year for many schools.

Several US carriers grounded flights, including United, American Airlines and Delta.

Matt Hull, Global Head of Threat Intelligence at global cyber security organisation, NCC Group told LBC: “Organisations across all sectors and of all sizes must focus on enhancing their cyber resilience.

“This involves a multifaceted approach that prioritises the development and implementation of comprehensive incident management plans.

“Regular security assessments are essential to identify and address vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. Continuous monitoring and testing of systems help ensure that defences are up-to-date and effective.

“Investing in advanced security technologies is also vital. Tools such as intrusion detection systems, firewalls, and encryption can provide additional layers of protection.”