The global Microsoft outage has caused significant disruptions across various sectors, affecting everything from flights and supermarkets to banking operations. If not resolved soon, the issues could escalate into a major crisis.
Impact in India: SpiceJet and Akasa Air
In India, airlines such as SpiceJet and Akasa Air have reported technical issues affecting their booking, check-in, and flight update services. SpiceJet announced on X, “We’re currently facing a technical issue in providing updates on flight disruptions. Our team is actively working to resolve this issue. We regret any inconvenience caused and will update you once the issue is resolved. Thank you for your patience and cooperation.”
#ImportantUpdate: We are currently experiencing technical challenges with our service provider, affecting online services including booking, check-in, and manage booking functionalities. As a result, we have activated manual check-in and boarding processes across airports. We…
— SpiceJet (@flyspicejet) July 19, 2024
Akasa Air also notified passengers about the disruption. “Due to infrastructure issues with our service provider, some of our online services, including booking, check-in, and manage booking services, will be temporarily unavailable. Currently, we are following manual check-in and boarding processes at the airports and hence request passengers with immediate travel plans to reach the airport early to check-in at our counters. We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused and want to assure you that our teams are working with our service provider to resolve the same at the earliest,” the airline posted on X.
#TravelUpdate: Due to infrastructure issues with our service provider, some of our online services, including booking, check-in and manage booking services will be temporarily unavailable. Currently we are following manual check-in and boarding processes at the airports and hence…
— Akasa Air (@AkasaAir) July 19, 2024
Australia Severely Affected
Australia is among the worst-hit countries. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the outage has disrupted ABC News 24, hindering their ability to play news packages. Woolworths supermarkets experienced checkout system crashes, causing frustration among customers whose cards were not working. Police systems also went down, exacerbating the crisis.
Melbourne Airport reported that the check-in processes of several airlines were affected due to the global technology issue. Virgin Australia confirmed that the outage led to a complete ground stop at Sydney Airport, halting all inbound and outbound flights. A staff member at the Virgin Australia lounge described the situation, saying, “The airline has put a stop on in-and-out flights, so it’s a complete ground stop; there’s no flights coming in and there’s no flights going out.”
Global Ramifications
The outage has had far-reaching consequences beyond Australia and India. The London Stock Exchange was reported to be affected, and several 911 emergency services in various US states were disrupted. Millions of Windows users worldwide encountered the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), causing their computers to shut down or restart unexpectedly. This error has led to loss of unsaved data and critical time, significantly impacting users and services.
As systems shut down, affected computers displayed the message, “Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart. We’re just collecting some error info, and then we’ll restart for you.” Blue Screen errors, also known as black screen errors or STOP code errors, occur when a critical issue forces Windows to shut down or restart unexpectedly.
Microsoft’s Response
Microsoft 365 issued a statement confirming that they are investigating the issue. The outage reportedly began with a subset of Microsoft customers experiencing problems with multiple Azure services in the Central US region. Azure is a cloud computing platform providing services for building, deploying, and managing applications.
We’re investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services. More info posted in the admin center under MO821132 and on https://t.co/W5Y8dAkjMk
— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) July 18, 2024
Additionally, Microsoft acknowledged an issue impacting various Microsoft 365 apps and services. The company has indicated that the BSOD error may have been triggered by a recent CrowdStrike update.
