American Airlines, United and Delta flights were affected by the outage, caused by what The New York Times described as “a flawed security update by CrowdStrike.”
“The issue appeared to be with an update to CrowdStrike software called Falcon Sensor, according to Lukasz Olejnik, an independent cybersecurity researcher and consultant,” The Times report stated. “An updated fix of the software has been sent to computers, but Mr. Olejnik said outages would probably persist because it was not clear how to fix the huge numbers of computers that had already been affected.”
According to CNBC, CrowdStrike “is a cybersecurity vendor that develops software to help companies detect and block hacks. It is used by many of the world's Fortune 500 companies, including major global banks, healthcare and energy companies.”
Indeed, air travel wasn’t the only industry hurt by the outage. Assorted banks and television stations, among other businesses around the world, suffered significant disruptions on Friday morning. The Dallas Zoo announced on social media that its online ticket sales were unavailable because of the problems, but anyone visiting the zoo on Friday would still be able to buy tickets on-site.
According to reports, flights for the major carriers were grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration around 3 a.m. A little past 4 a.m. at DFW, WFAA’s Chris Sadeghi tweeted that kiosks at the Delta counter displayed the “blue screen of death” before adding that, at that point, “[l]ong lines are backing up as several airlines deal with the #CyberSecurity outages.”
Kiosks at the Delta ticket counter of DFW being restarted after showing the “Blue Screen of Death.”
— Chris Sadeghi (@chrissadeghi) July 19, 2024
Long lines are backing up as several airlines deal with the #CyberSecurity outages. @wfaa pic.twitter.com/mkwjLx1LkT
The lines for everything except baggage claim remained lengthy past 7:30 a.m. when an airport employee told us that the grounding had been lifted. Even that encouraging development, however, wasn’t enough to fix the ruined morning for a number of travelers.
Landon Roupp of North Carolina said his 6:40 a.m. flight from DFW to Sacramento had been canceled after he had checked his baggage. As he dealt with the double whammy of waiting for his luggage to be given back to him while having no idea when another flight would be available to him, he found out that his family in North Carolina, who were scheduled to also fly to Sacramento today, also had their flights canceled.
One woman we spoke to just before 8 a.m. said her 7:15 a.m. flight from DFW to Los Angeles was canceled just before boarding was set to begin, and that there were no flights available for her for the rest of the day.
“We all saw the plane just sitting there,” she said. “So we thought we were going to be able to get on, but then all of a sudden, no flight.”
A few others we spoke to with various destinations noted there were slight delays for their flights, but hadn’t heard anything beyond that. The electronic arrivals/departures board in Terminal A noted only a few cancellations just before 8 a.m.
As of 9 a.m., there had been more than 1,600 delays and 400 cancellations across the United States, according to the Flight Aware “misery tracker,” with more than 100 delays and 20 cancellations taking place at DFW. Even with a congested terminal and bad news popping up on phones, some travelers in DFW’s American Airlines ticketing line held out hope for a smooth morning, even if it was a small amount.
“I guess I’m just lucky right now, but my flight is still on-time,” one man told us as he briskly rolled his bag to the back of the serpentine line. “That might change, but so far so good right now.”
