Travelers told to ‘go home’ as global tech outage causes delays, cancelations at Logan Airport

BOSTON — A global technology outage that impacted various companies also disrupted hundreds of flights at Boston’s Logan Airport on Friday.

“The FAA is closely monitoring a technical issue impacting IT systems at U.S. airlines. Several airlines have requested FAA assistance with ground stops until the issue is resolved,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement early Friday morning as Microsoft scrambled to fix a problem affecting Microsoft 365 apps and services, including Windows users.

Massport said some airlines at Logan were affected by the computer outage and the FAA noted that United, American, and Allegiant flights were all grounded at one point.

“We urge passengers to check with their airline for their flight status before coming to the airport,” a Massport spokesperson said.

Logan Airport added, “Due to a global computer outage affecting airlines, many flights are being delayed or canceled. Please check with your airline before coming to the airport.”

As of 12 p.m., there were 236 delays at Logan and 74 cancellations, according to FlightAware

Some travelers were spotted using backpacks and other luggage for pillows as flight delays and cancellations mounted at Logan.

Delta was one of the airlines experiencing issues with flights in and out of Boston.

“Delta has paused its global flight schedule this morning due to a vendor technology issue that is impacting several airlines and businesses around the world. We are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible to resume operations,” the airline said.

Boston 25′s Ryan Breslin reported that Delta flights were beginning to take off again after 8 a.m.

There was also a sea of people seen waiting outside the Spirit Airlines counter for much of the morning.

“I had a very nice police officer tell me, ‘Just go home. You’re better off. Just go home.’ So that’s what we’re going to do,” Spirit passenger Mike Amica said.

Other Boston travelers say they got alerted that their flight was canceled but boards at Logan weren’t updated to reflect that.

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Global IT outage BANGKOK, THAILAND - JULY 19: Passengers checking their phones at Suvarnabhumi Airport as a global IT disruption caused by a Microsoft outage and a Crowdstrike IT problem combine to affect users"on July 19, 2024 in Bangkok, Thailand. on July 19, 2024 in Bangkok, Thailand. A significant Microsoft outage impacted users globally, leading to widespread disruptions, including cancelled flights and disruptions at retailers globally. Airlines like American Airlines and Southwest Airlines reported difficulties with their systems, which rely on Microsoft services for operations. The outage affected check-in processes and other essential functions, causing frustration among travellers and lines to back up at many affected airports worldwide. (Photo by Mailee Osten-Tan/Getty Images) (Mailee Osten-Tan/Getty Images)

“We went online this morning to try to rebook the flight and my husband found out that our flight was still flying and it wasn’t canceled,” Kimberly McCoy said. “So we decided to just show up here.”

A group stop for all airlines was issued earlier in the morning because the software used to obtain flight routes was impacted by the outage. While some flight departures have resumed, delays are still expected throughout the day on Friday.

At the heart of the massive disruption is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that says the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows

CrowdStrike noted that the issue was not a security incident or cyberattack.

Major delays were also reported at a slew of airports worldwide, with most attributing the problems to the booking systems of individual airlines.

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