LIVE | Microsoft global outage: Many systems partially up, says IT Minister Vaishnaw
IndiGo has cancelled around 200 flights, however, the number of delayed flights can't be quantified, source said
Airport and airline operations across the country were almost crippled on Friday (July 19) due to a Microsoft outage globally, leading to a complete chaos with IndiGo alone cancelling around 200 flights.
In addition to this, hundreds of flights were delayed by a considerable time across airlines' networks due to the outage, which started from 1040 am, according to sources.
As services like bookings, check-in and boarding moved to manual mode, taking longer than expected time and leading to long queues at airports, passengers, including those who were travelling due to some emergency reasons, were seen complaining about the lack of information about their flights and venting out ire on airline staff.
The web check-in feature, which remained temporarily unavailable for passengers across airports, led to further chaos.
"They are doing it manually so obviously it will take time. They are taking about 30-40 minutes to process a passenger's ticket. How will they do it for all, They don't have a reply," said a passenger.
200 flights cancelled
IndiGo has cancelled around 200 flights, however, the number of delayed flights can't be quantified, said a source.
"The Microsoft/CrowdStrike outage has taken down most airports in India. I got my first hand-written boarding pass today," said IndiGo passenger Akshay Kothari in a post on X displaying his manual boarding pass.
According to preliminary data put out by aviation analytics firm Cirium on the global IT disruption in the afternoon, 56 flights were cancelled out of 3,652 flights scheduled from Indian destinations. This does not include inbound flights to India.
Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu assured the passengers that the ministry and Airports Authority of India (AAI) are actively managing the situation using manual methods to ensure minimal disruption.
"We have instructed all airlines and airport authorities to keep passengers informed about their flight status and provide necessary assistance," Naidu said.
What IT minister Vaishnaw said
Union Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the ministry is in touch with Microsoft regarding the global outage.
"MEITY is in touch with Microsoft and its associates regarding the global outage. The reason for this outage has been identified and updates have been released to resolve the issue.
"CERT is issuing a technical advisory. NIC network is not affected," Vaishnaw posted on his X handle.
Later, in the evening he said, "MEITY is continually in touch with Microsoft, which in turn is actively working with impacted entities. In addition, CERT-In is coordinating with CISOs of critical infrastructure entities. All impacted entities are working to bring up their systems. In many cases, systems are partially up."
(With agency inputs)
Travelers wait in line at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in Baltimore, USA, Friday, July 19. AP/PTI
IndiGo has cancelled around 200 flights, however, the number of delayed flights can't be quantified, PTI reported citing a source.
MD and CEO of the Bengaluru-headquartered company, Srinivas Pallia, made the comments during the company's June quarter earnings press conference.
"One, no impact to Wipro. Two, we are actually talking to the clients, trying to step up and help them because we are following the sun model -- Europe and the US -- and we are seeing the impact of cloud strike (there)... we are ramping up ourselves to help our clients," Srini said.
Two flights were cancelled and all flight operations are experiencing delays at Vijayawada and Tirupati airports in Andhra Pradesh, following a global IT outage, officials said on Friday.
The Vijayawada International Airport at Gannavaram witnessed a flight cancellation, a round trip IndiGo flight from Bengaluru to the city, an official said.
“One flight has been cancelled. Bengaluru–Vijayawada–Bengaluru flight from IndiGo airline. It was scheduled for 8 pm and all the other flights are delayed because of the software outage,” Vijayawada Airport Director Lakshmikant Reddy told PTI.
According to Reddy, five flights came on time in the morning before the mass outage struck on a global scale, starting in Australia.
He said the flights started getting delayed from 11.30 am onwards and IndiGo airline was worst hit. Out of 23 flights, Reddy said 12 were delayed for up to 45 minutes.
One IndiGo flight to Tirupati from Hyderabad was cancelled, Airport Director K M Basavaraju said.
“Mostly, IndiGo flights are getting delayed. Six flights got affected as of now. We are encountering delays in all flight operations,” he said.
Shares of stock broking firms, including Angel One and 5paisa Capital, declined on Friday as several traders faced operational disruptions in view of the global service outage of Microsoft systems.
The stock of Angel One went lower by 3.42 per cent, 5paisa Capital Ltd dropped 3.15 per cent, Nuvama Wealth Management fell 2.25 per cent, Motilal Oswal declined 2.19 per cent and IIFL Securities Ltd dipped 1.04 per cent on the BSE.
Microsoft users globally, several in India, have reported massive outages in services, with outage tracking website Downdetector showing users flagging disruptions across various services.
Several traders in India faced operational disruption as the global service outage affected many brokerages, including 5paisa, IIFL Securities, and Angel One.
Others impacted by the widespread global computer outage include Motilal Oswal and Edelweiss Mutual Fund. Some brokerages later said systems have been restored and are up and running.
The outage not just affected broking firms but also disrupted airlines' operations.
Shares of InterGlobe Aviation fell by 3.11 per cent.
However, stock exchanges and financial institutions, including banks, largely remained unaffected.
"Due to a global outage with Crowdstrike/Microsoft, offering a cyber security solution, our systems are affected," 5paisa announced on X (formerly Twitter).
Separately, Angel One said, "You may have experienced an intermittent issue due to a global outage faced by one of the solution providers." Further, Edelweiss Mutual Fund too revealed about login issues on its website, owing to the outage.
Despite the issue, the country's leading stock exchanges NSE and BSE said they were not impacted due to the global outage of Microsoft systems.
"The domestic market closed today with a downturn due to the global sell-off, triggered by operating system issues that caused devices to crash worldwide. The global IT outrage has led to disruptions in various Indian industries," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services.
The 30-share BSE Sensex tanked 738.81 points or 0.91 per cent to settle at 80,604.65 after hitting a fresh all-time high of 81,587.76 in initial trade.
"In addition, Microsoft outage impacted lot of large organizations, airlines, stock exchanges globally," Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd, said.
The RBI on Friday said the outage in Microsoft Services impacted 10 banks and NBFCs with minor disruptions which have either been resolved or are being resolved.
The large-scale outage in Microsoft Services is impacting IT systems globally leading to disruptions in various sectors.
The Reserve Bank said it has made an assessment of the impact of this outage on its regulated entities.
"Critical systems of most banks are not in cloud and further, only a few banks are using the CrowdStrike tool. Our assessment shows that only 10 banks and NBFCs had minor disruptions which have either been resolved or are being resolved," RBI said in a statement.
Overall, it said the Indian financial sector in the Reserve Bank's domain remains insulated from the global outage.
The Reserve Bank has also issued an advisory to its regulated entities for taking necessary steps to remain alert and ensure operational resilience and continuity.
Two IndiGo flights scheduled to leave from the Manohar International Airport at Mopa on Friday night and three from the Dabolim International Airport were cancelled, PTI reported citing airport sources.