Nearly All US Flights Grounded, Other Businesses Halted By Massive Global IT Outage

A widespread Microsoft outage disrupted flights, banks, media outlets and companies around the world on Friday.

Yes, This includes businesses in the United States and right here in the Northeast.

Escalating disruptions continued hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services. The issues appeared to first be reported overnight Thursday night into early Friday morning.

The website DownDectector, which tracks user-reported internet outages, recorded growing outages in services at Visa, ADT security and Amazon, and airlines including American Airlines and Delta.

Microsoft 365 posted on X that the company was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact in a more expedient fashion” and that they were “observing a positive trend in service availability.”

U.S Airlines Report Ground Stops

Nearly all US Airlines have asked the FAA for a ground stop as they've been impacted by the outage.

The FAA said the airlines United, American, Delta and Allegiant had all been grounded. We've heard of passengers being stranded at airports across the country — including airports in both Philadelphia, Pa. and Newark, NJ.

Flights that are already in the air appear to be continuing on to their destination, but additional flights are not taking off at this time.

Countless Other Businesses Affected By IT Outage

It's unclear exactly how many industries are affected by the IT outage, but across the globe it's been affecting media companies, banking, global stock exchanges, retail stores, and more.

We've seen reports of this across the globe overnight.

Friday Morning's IT Outage Linked to CrowdStrike

The outages appears stem from an issue with the cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike. They promise to offer businesses (including Microsoft) real time protection from cybersecurity threats.

“CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity company. It runs (a) variety of enterprise pieces of software for endpoint malware detection. It’s kind of like antivirus, essentially, but usually, for corporate systems, usually not people to home PCs,” Jeffrey L. Foster, an associate professor in at Macquarie University in Australia, told CNN.com earlier this morning.

A Timeline For Repair Isn't Clear

An exact timeline for repairs to the IT issues we're seeing globally was not immediately clear. Multiple media outlets (including CNN) have reported this well. 

Though, it did not sound like Microsoft had been making some progress at bringing their services back online for customers as the morning started on Friday.

This is a developing story. We'll update it when more information is available. 

Author note: The Associated Press contributed to this report.