Worldwide flight disruptions continued over the weekend after a massive IT outage caused airlines across the globe to delay or cancel thousands of flights.
According to flight tracking website FlightAware, the incident caused 46,013 flights to be delayed and saw 5,171 canceled on June 19, 2024, the first day of the outage.
US carriers were the most affected by the disruption. On July 20, 2024, 35,204 flights were delayed in the United States, and 2,881 were canceled. June 21, 2024, saw fewer delays, with 34,362 US flights delayed and 2,961 canceled.
During the IT disruption, Delta Airlines canceled the highest number of flights. The carrier experienced one of the most crowded travel weekends of the summer. Delta reported that the pause in operations resulted in more than 3,500 Delta and Delta Connection flights being canceled on July 20, 2024.
“Delta is in the business of connecting the world, and we understand how difficult it can be when your travels are disrupted. We have issued a travel waiver to enable you to make a change to your itinerary at no charge,” Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Airlines, stated in a press release on July 21, 2024. “In addition, for those whose flights have been impacted, we continue to offer meal vouchers, hotel accommodations and transportation where available.”
On July 19, 2024, the first day of IT outage, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) experienced the highest number of cancellations among US airports, with 447 flights canceled, which is about 34% of all departures. On the same day, there were also 570 delayed flights, which accounted for 44% of all flights at the airport.
Cyber-security firm CrowdStrike admitted that the issue was caused by an update to its antivirus software, which is designed to protect Microsoft Windows devices from attacks.