Companies worldwide faced disruptions due to a Microsoft cloud computing outage on Friday, grounding flights, hindering news broadcasts, and impacting brokerage operations.
The outage, affecting regions including Australia, the US, the UK, and India, disrupted various institutions such as banks, media organizations, stock markets, government offices, and airports.
DownDetector reported issues with Microsoft’s Azure cloud service and Microsoft 365, with 1,751 outages reported in the US alone over the past 24 hours. Microsoft stated that the outage began around 6 pm ET on Thursday, primarily impacting Azure services in the Central US region and affecting various Microsoft 365 apps and services.
Microsoft has since announced that some services are now back online.
In the US, major airlines including American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United Airlines imposed ground stops on Friday morning due to communication issues, shortly after Microsoft resolved its cloud outage. It remains unclear if these flight groundings were directly related to the Microsoft outage. Additionally, low-cost carriers such as Frontier Airlines, Allegiant Air, and SunCountry also experienced operational disruptions.
Frontier Airlines reported that it was in the process of resuming normal operations and had lifted its ground stop. The airline initially attributed the disruption to a “major Microsoft technical outage,” while SunCountry cited a third-party vendor issue without specifying the company involved.
US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg stated that the department was monitoring flight cancellations and delays and would ensure airlines meet passenger needs. Allegiant Air reported that its website was down due to the Microsoft Azure issue, and Frontier canceled 147 flights and delayed 212 others, according to FlightAware data. Allegiant and SunCountry also reported significant delays.
