Delta, United, American and Alaska Airlines were among the numerous airlines reporting IT issues early July 19.
Salt Lake City International Airport, a Delta hub, has reported more than 150 delays and 60 cancellations Friday.
Park City-area wine distributor Grey Johnson’s Delta flight was delayed two hours July 19, but the app didn't reflect that change.
“On the website, if I type in the flight number… it does still say it's delayed, which I imagine has led to a lot of confusion,” Johnson told KPCW.
Johnson said Delta’s app added to frustrations the morning of the outage because of very slow loading times. He said his friend was locked out entirely. When Johnson did get in, it initially didn’t show he had any flight at all.
“And the only flight that it had on record for me was a flight I took four years ago from here to Zurich,” he said.
Johnson said he can rebook without additional fees, if necessary. But he said the delays and app troubles are “anxiety-inducing.”
Pilot Molly Jackson was hoping to fly standby July 19.
“They call it ‘non-rev’ travel, non revenue,” she said. “If you work for an airline, that's when you can do that, fly standby.”
However, Delta suspended non-revenue travel while it worked to rebook paying passengers.
“So we saw that this morning, and I'm scrambling to see what else we can fly on,” she said July 19.
Jackson said she pivoted to Southwest Airlines whose systems were not affected by the global IT outage.
Southwest previously came under fire for canceling about 60% of its flights in one day during the 2022 holiday travel season. Critics attributed the scheduling issues to outdated software.
Delta, United, Alaska and American were affected this time because they use newer Microsoft systems.
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike took responsibility, saying one of its updates crashed Windows on any machine that received it.
Industry professionals say anyone online with both Windows and CrowdStrike who received updates between 10:09 p.m. and 11:29 p.m. MDT was affected.
That meant more than just airlines. The Associated Press reported disruptions to hospitals, 911 systems, banks and media outlets.
CrowdStrike President and CEO George Kurtz said the outage was not a security breach and CrowdStrike customers remain fully protected.
There is a fix, but in many cases it required someone to physically connect to the affected machine, manually undo the update and restart it.
After bringing its systems back online, Delta allowed travelers to rebook flights at no extra cost, while it worked to recover. Fare differences were waived too, as long as travelers rebooked in the same cabin prior to July 25.
