John Wayne, Long Beach and LAX flights temporarily grounded; ports disrupted – Orange County Register
Long lines snake around the Spirit Airlines counter in Los Angeles International Airport’s Terminal 5 early Friday, July 19, 2024, as a global tech outage grounded airlines and disrupted hospitals, banks and other computer-dependent tasks around the world. (Photo by Axel Koester/Contributing Photographer)
Departing flights from Los Angeles International Airport, Hollywood Burbank Airport, Long Beach Airport and John Wayne Airport were temporarily grounded on Friday, July 19, after the airlines asked the Federal Aviation Administration for a global ground stop on all flights, according to a FAA alert.
The request for a global grounding comes on the heels of Melbourne Airport in Australia reporting they are “experiencing a global technology issue” that is impacting their check-in procedures, ABC 7 reported.
“We are seeing some delays from United, Delta and American Airlines. Our communications center is in constant communications with the FAA,” LAX spokeswoman Dae Levine said.
Levine added that she was not sure if all the delays were related to the problems at Melbourne Airport.
AROUND THE WORLD: Widespread global tech outage disrupts flights, banks, hospitals and media outlets
Flights already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations, but American, United or Delta flights will not depart from their airports.
The FAA is telling air-traffic controllers to tell airborne pilots that airlines are currently experiencing communication difficulties, according to ABC 7.
At LAX, airlines were moving toward getting back to normal.
“We’re still experiencing some delays and cancellations with the various airlines, but there are others that are running on time, so it’s airline by airline,” Dae Levine, a LAX spokeswoman, told the Southern California News Group. “We are seeing some of the issues being resolved with the airline tech outage.
“It does seem like they’re starting to get back online, but there’s a residual effect for an outage like this,” she said. “It will take us a little while to make sure everything is taken care of from the backlog.”
Canoga Park resident Boing Francisco’s Spirit Airlines flight from Burbank to Oakland was delayed five times Friday morning. The delays have made her late to see her father on his 92nd birthday.
“They said there’s a global outage happening and I’m really frustrated,” Francisco said. “It’s confusing and I keep getting different information.”
Tyler Stitt and Angelica Nippard woke up at 4:30 a.m. and drove to LAX, ready to catch their flight to Denver for a family member’s wedding. They then found out their flight was cancelled, and after three hours of waiting for an update, they decided to try to get on a standby flight at Hollywood-Burbank airport.
“It’s cutting into precious family time,” Stitt said. “It’s really hectic and unsettling that a single technology failure could mess everything up this much.”
By 8 a.m. at John Wayne, there had been six cancellations and 40 delays.
Shipments at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach were disrupted and delayed. KNX reported that hundreds of trucks waited for hours for cargo to be released and loaded.
But Rachel Campbell, a Port of Los Angeles spokeswoman, told the Southern California News Group that only one container terminal at that port was affected. It is now fully operational, she said, and all trucks in the queue have been processed into the terminal.
“We’re aware of a technical issue with CrowdStrike that is impacting multiple carriers. American is working with CrowdStrike to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience,” American Airlines said in a statement obtained by ABC News.
CrowdStrike is a U.S. cybersecurity company that has admitted to being responsible for the error and is working to correct it.
“A third-party software outage is impacting computer systems worldwide, including at United,” United Airlines said in a statement on Friday morning. “While we work to restore those systems, we are holding all aircraft at their departure airports. Flights already airborne are continuing to their destinations.”
We continue to work closely with airlines as they work to resume normal operations. Ground stops and delays will be intermittent at various airports as the airlines work through residual technology issues. Contact the airlines for more information. Monitor https://t.co/smgdqJN3td
— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) July 19, 2024
American Airlines issued a statement at 2 a.m. Friday that they were back up and running as normal.
“Earlier this morning, a technical issue with a vendor impacted multiple carriers, including American. As of 5 a.m. ET, we have been able to safely re-establish our operation. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience,” the statement read.
JWA is aware of a global Microsoft issue affecting airlines. Travelers should reach out to their airlines for the latest information on anticipated delays and cancellations. Contact information is on our website https://t.co/ijLoYVq6bl
— John Wayne Airport (@JohnWayneAir) July 19, 2024
Outages are spreading worldwide and are being reported at Berlin Airport in Germany, the London Stock Exchange, Google Cloud, Microsoft and Gatwick Airport in the United Kingdom.
CrowdStrike issued a statement, stating the cybersecurity company is “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”
Meanwhile, Microsoft said it is investigating the extent of the outage.
“We’re investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services,” Microsoft said in a statement released on social media Friday morning.
Global tech outage hits LA, Orange County court systems, too
Southern California public agencies were in monitoring mode.
In Los Angeles, city officials were monitoring their operations.
“(Police and fire) emergency operations have not been impacted at this time,” said Deputy Mayor Zach Seidl in a statement. “The mayor has been in touch with (LAX) leadership, who are working actively to resolve travel issues.”
Amtrak is reporting the outage is preventing credit-card transactions for its Pacific Surfliner service. Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPay payments can be used to complete online reservations.
Southern California News Group reporters Delilah Brumer, Sean Emery, Donna Littlejohn, Nathaniel Percy and Destiny Torres contributed to this report.
