CrowdStrike Outage Causes Thousands of Flight Cancellations and Delays

A widespread outage of CrowdStrike, a major cybersecurity provider, has caused chaos in the U.S. aviation industry today, resulting in thousands of flight cancellations worldwide. The technical issue has affected multiple airlines and airports, leaving countless passengers stranded and scrambling to adjust their travel plans.

CrowdStrike, which provides critical cybersecurity services to many airlines and airports, experienced a significant system failure beginning Thursday evening. The outage has impacted essential operations systems, including those used for check-in, boarding, and flight planning.

Major carriers such as American Airlines, Delta, and United have reported extensive cancellations and delays, and many airports across the U.S. are currently under ground stops or ground delays. Flight tracking site FlightAware reports 23,929 delayed and 2,332 canceled flights today.

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CrowdStrike’s CEO, George Kurtz, said early Friday morning, “The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”

Aviation experts warn that the ripple effects of this outage could continue for several days, even after the immediate technical issues are resolved. If you’re flying in the next few days, check your flight status before heading to the airport, and be prepared for potential changes to your travel plans. 

Many airlines are waiving change fees and fare differences for all customers who have booked flights departing today, July 19. However, most airlines require re-booking travel by July 24th or 25th. If you wish to change your flight, you should be able to do so directly in the airline’s app or website. Expect significant wait times if you call the airline’s customer service numbers, which are experiencing high call volume due to the outage.