FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Air travelers at Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport felt the impact of cancelations and delays on Friday.
Pam Powell was frantically looking for a shuttle and a hotel. She was also trying to make urgent last-minute arrangements as a caretaker.
“I have a 96-year-old mother who is about to be home alone because I was supposed to be home to check on her and I am not going to be back,” Powell said.
A global information technology outage impacted the operations of American Airlines, Delta, United, Spirit, and Allegiant. The Federal Aviation Administration was working with the airlines to recover.
Jin Qian said the representatives of United Airlines couldn’t help him after he couldn’t make his flight transfer. He felt powerless.
“It is rather extraordinary that a tech issue in the software company can affect so very, many people,” Qian said.
CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity tech company based in Texas, took responsibility for a software update to Microsoft Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts were not impacted.
Jamie Higgins also couldn’t get help, so she opted to buy a ticket from an airline that wasn’t affected. She was waiting to get home to North Carolina with Southwest Airlines.
The FAA reported that FLL still had departure delays on Friday evening. There were six airport closures: Boston Logan International Airport, Harry Reid International Airport, LaGuardia, Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport, Charles M. Schulz–Sonoma County Airport, and Henry E. Rohlsen Airport.
The FAA urged air travelers affected to contact their airlines for information and visit this page to monitor the status of flights across the country with a list view and a map view.
COMPLETE COVERAGE