Mass IT outage grounds planes and hits trains, banks and businesses across the world

19 July 2024, 08:08 | Updated: 19 July 2024, 08:38

By Kieran Kelly

@kellyjourno

A mass IT outage is grounding planes and affecting trains, banks and broadcasters across the world.

There are huge problems in countries including the United States, where planes have been grounded, as well as in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the UK.

Passengers checking in for flights at UK airports operated by Swissport, which includes London Heathrow and London Gatwick, are being manually processed due to the outage.

Swissport works in 20 airports across the country and is the handling agent for airlines including Ryanair & TUI. Today is expected to be the busiest day for flight departures so far in 2024.

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Berlin Airport has said a "technical fault" is affecting services, while all Spanish airports are affected.

"We are working to solve it as soon as possible. Meanwhile, operations are continuing with manual systems," says the Spanish airport operator.

Sydney Airport has warned passengers to expect delays as flights in the US are grounded.

Microsoft has said it is taking "mitigation actions" after service issues. 

The outage started at about 6pm Eastern Time (11pm last night UK time).

Rail services in the UK have been affected, including the Gatwick Express, Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern services.

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The message stated: "We are currently experiencing widespread IT issues across our entire network.

"Our IT teams are actively investigating to determine the root cause of the problem.

"We are unable to access driver diagrams at certain locations, leading to potential short-notice cancellations, particularly on the Thameslink and Great Northern networks.

"Additionally, other key systems, including our real-time customer information platforms, are also affected.

"We will provide additional updates when we can. In the meantime, please regularly check your journey before you travel."

GTR carries more passengers and has more trains and staff than any other operator in Britain.

Emergency services lines are reportedly down in the US, including in Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Ohio.

An official Microsoft 365 service update posted on Twitter: "We're investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services".

The London Stock Exchange is not being affected by the outage, but traders are unable to access information about certain companies.

More follows.