Microsoft outage sparks global chaos, from travel to hospitals

Luten felt the full effect of a global software outage affecting Microsoft Windows users that hampered airports, hospitals, offices and banks worldwide, creating a cascade of chaos and inconvenience affecting everything from plane flights to bank transfers.

American hospitals had to contend with inaccessible machinery and medicines, setting off a wave of canceled appointments and surgeries. In Britain, the National Health Service said the outage disrupted “the majority” of family practice surgeries Friday, affecting digital appointment and patient record systems. It said paper patient records would be used and that patients should continue to attend appointments.

Airline travelers, both domestic and abroad, faced serpentine lines from Philadelphia to Singapore as flight monitors lit up with thousands of delay and cancellation notices. In Baltimore, airport staff served water and cookies to exhausted travelers who had gotten stuck since the night before. In Dallas, the outage forced some airport workers to draft boarding passes by hand.

Even the Paris Olympics organizing committee found itself waylaid by the outage as it continued preparations for the kickoff of the games next week. The outage has had a “limited” impact so far, the panel said in a statement Friday, affecting “the delivery of uniforms and accreditations,” while some delegations were experiencing flight delays, it added.

In Alaska, multiple dispatch centers were forced to switch to analog phone systems or refer calls to partner centers as the outage hampered 911 and non-emergency call services from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., according to Austin McDaniel, communications director for the Alaska Department of Public Safety.

The outage fueled a flood of social media posts from people grappling with the fallout, even inspiring some waves of F.O.M.O. — fear of missing out — in some workers who’d hoped the disruptions might net them some time off.

“Got to the office and my Outlook still works,” one user posted on X. “This is the adult version of it snowing really hard but you still don’t get a snow day.”

Many Windows users were met with a BSOD error — known as the “blue screen of death” — when they powered up their machines Friday.

Though outage details are still emerging, Microsoft and cybersecurity company CrowdStrike said the underlying problems were being repaired.

Chris Dong contributed to this report.