Airlines, banks and broadcasters were among the companies around the world reporting disruptions, citing technical issues.
NEW YORK (TIP): CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that services numerous industries, was down across parts of the world on Friday morning, halting news broadcasts and grounding flights.
At least three major U.S. airlines, American, United and Delta, grounded all flights, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. In Australia, the New South Wales Police Force said on social media that it was aware of a system outage. Problems persisted at Sydney Airport, one Australia’s largest and busiest transportation hubs, just as the weekend was getting underway for many.
“A global technical outage has impacted some airplane operations and terminal services,” the airport said on social media. “Flights are currently arriving and departing, however there may be some delays throughout the evening.”
The airport said it had activated its contingency plan and deployed additional staff to the terminals.
Representatives for CrowdStrike did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
The round of severe disruptions on Friday comes after Frontier Airlines briefly grounded flights on Thursday evening because of a major outage in Microsoft networks. Some low-cost carriers like Allegiant Air and Sun Country Airlines were also affected. Microsoft said the problem had affected multiple systems for customers in the central United States.