Mumbai: American tech major Microsoft Windows outage hit several airports across India and severely disrupted Indigo, Vistara, Akasa, Spicejet and Air India flights with over 200 flights cancellations, 192 flights by Indigo alone, on Friday. Other services impacted by the Microsoft Global outage were top trading and brokerage house including Nuvama and Edelweiss.
The outage of Microsoft Team, Windows 365, OneDrive and other applications of the microsoft operating system unleashed havoc on computer systems across the world, grounding flights, crippling banks, stock exchanges, payment systems and emergency services.
The major technical glitch on the Microsoft platform caused by update from security partner CrowdStrike impacted check-in systems for airlines and resulted in the cancellation of several flights at Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad airports.
"A global outage with the Navitaire Departure Control System (NDCS) has been affecting operations of some airlines across their network, including BLR Airport since 10. 40 IST on July 19, 2024," a Bangalore International Airport Limited spokesperson said in a statement.
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The IT failure led airlines resort to manual check-in process, involving handwritten boarding passes at airports. “Indigo, AI Express, Air Asia, Spicejet and Akasa are impacted and not able to access their airline check-in system. Boarding pass is being issued manually. Mumbai Airport systems not impacted,” said Mumbai Airport spokesperson.
Indigo Airlines in statement said “Flights are cancelled due to the cascading effect of the worldwide travel system outage, beyond our control. The option to rebook/claim a refund is temporarily unavailable.”
Akasa Airlines announced that some of its online services will be temporarily unavailable at the Mumbai and Delhi airports while Spicejet issued a statement that it is currently facing a technical issue in providing flight updates. International airlines forced to ground all flights include American, United and Delta.
A security update on Microsoft Windows-based workstations suffered the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) and irreparably damaged installs of the operating system.
“The resultant IT outage has taken entire industries offline, with most airlines grounded, major TV stations worldwide going off the air, and many healthcare providers unable to provide vital services,” said cyber security analyst Mihir Desai.
The cyber security experts systems were more vulnerable to cybersecurity threats, leading to potential data breaches and unauthorised access during such outages.
Other airlines posted on X (twitter) about the flight disruptions and delays caused by the computer system and network glitch impacting bookings and check-in of passengers at major airports. While full service airlines Vistara canceled several Delhi flights, budget airlines Spicejet asked flyers to manually check in at airports due to disruption of online services.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) advised airlines to provide updates to passengers regarding delays and other disruption coordinating with airlines and airports to address the situation.
“The terminal operations team is working closely with the airlines and the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) to ensure minimal disruption and inconvenience to passengers. DGCA is closely monitoring the situation with airlines to ensure all safety and procedural measures are in place,” said Civil Aviation Minister Rammohan Naidu adding that airport authorities and airlines were directed to be compassionate and provide extra seating, water and food for passengers affected by delays.
The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) issued an advisory on the Microsoft outage caused by Crowdstrike update, and rated its severity as "critical" while Microsoft acknowledged widespread outages affecting users globally, including banks and airlines stating it was gradually resolving issues with access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.
Indian stock exchanges were not disrupted by the outage with NSE and BSE denying trading was impacted due to the global outage of Microsoft systems amid reports of disruptions.
Indian banking and financial institutions faced minor disruptions by the Microsoft Global outage. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) made an assessment of the impact of the outage on its Regulated Entities and asserted the Indian financial sector in its domain remains insulated from the global outage.
“Critical systems of most banks are not in cloud and further, only a few banks are using the CrowdStrike tool. Our assessment shows that only 10 banks and NBFCs had minor disruptions which have either been resolved or are being resolved”, said the central bank.
The RBI also issued an Advisory to its Regulated Entities for taking necessary steps to remain alert and ensure operational resilience and continuity. India’s largest private setcor bank HDFC Bank confirmed that its systems were unaffected by the global outage and had no impact on banking operations.
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