'We're not being given any information': Furious holidaymaker stranded in Rhodes tells of travel hell after IT outage
20 July 2024, 16:40
A furious holidaymaker stranded in a hotel in Rhodes has told of the travel disorder she is facing following the global IT outage.
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Kate Bromley, from Chiswick in west London, spoke to LBC News from a hotel in Rhodes where she spent the night with dozens of families sleeping on a conference room floor.
She claimed passengers on the cancelled flight to Gatwick have had “no information” from TUI, and have no idea when they’ll get home.
"We were told that our Gatwick Flight had been cancelled and we were being sent off to a desk where we were told we would be sorted out with hotels and somewhere to go," Ms Bromley said.
"But then they told us there's no rooms and we would all have to be sleeping in a large conference area and we were told there would be beds and bedding. But when we got here there wasn't anything.
"There's children here. There's babies. So everybody's quite stressed and upset.
Read more: National Lottery down as users unable to access site and app day after global IT outage
"The very frustrating thing for us is we're just not being given any information. So we've not had any emails or text messages from TUI."
The global IT outage ensued after a defective update was rolled out by cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, causing issues with accessing Windows systems.
The defect left computers displaying blue error screens.
A fix for the bug was deployed in the afternoon yet widespread disruption had already impacted travel, healthcare, and businesses.
London Gatwick, Heathrow Airport, Manchester Airport, and Belfast International Airport are among some of the airports in the UK that have cautioned passengers to check with airlines for delays or cancellations before travelling over the weekend.
The advice comes after 167 flights scheduled to depart UK airports were cancelled on Friday, with delays impacting many other flights.
More than 5,000 flights were cancelled globally.
George Kurtz, the CEO of Crowdstrike, warned that it could take "some time" for systems to be fully operational.
"As we resolve this incident, you have my commitment to provide full transparency on how this occurred and steps we’re taking to prevent anything like this from happening again," he added.
Professor Ciaran Martin, the founding chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said: "Some industries can recovery quickly.
"But others like aviation will have long backlogs. That said, I'd be surprised if we were still facing serious problems this time next week."
TUI has been contacted for comment.
