We were leaving Joburg last night on BA (9:05pm), everyone boarded and almost ready to go when pilot announced there was a “systems” issue and the airport couldn’t provide him with paperwork regarding weights and other things, said the system had just gone down and they were working on it, no estimated time for corrections. 45 minutes later he announced that his crew was going to do it manually, but would take some time to complete. Finally, after an hour and a half he announced everything was satisfactorily completed and we could take off. There were other passengers who had fairly close connections in Heathrow and I’m sure they missed connections. Also had friends on Delta flight scheduled to leave about the same time and I’ll bet they missed Atlanta connection, too. We arrived at Heathrow an hour late and once in terminal there was announcement that Berlin airport was closed due to systems issues, read where Australia has same problem. Bet it’s not a coincidence.
We are in one of the BA lounges in Heathrow, the guest services desk has about 15 people lined up trying to get flights to their destination. And this is only the biz/first class passengers, I’ll bet there are 4-5 times as many at the outside guest services desk. Sure hope our flight hasn’t been affected.
Our BA flight was scheduled to leave Heathrow at 5:50 pm local time. We finally found out which gate it was to leave from about 10 minutes before boarding time. When we got to the gate there were 11 passengers at the gate, flight crew arrived and boarded, after about 20 minutes people started trickling in to the gate. About 30 min late we boarded, gate agent had to manually check boarding passes, only one computer was working. Boarding took quite a while and then they started paging passengers…there was baggage on the plane but the owner had not boarded, this necessitated removing the luggage of the absent passenger (no idea how luggage got there without a passenger). This took about an hour because their scanners were not working some of the time. What a mess, but we made it to the US. Some of our friends on other airlines weren’t so fortunate.
I heard this described as the largest internet failure in history. Both Microsoft and Crowdstrike calling it a software problem associated with an update. Sounds like the whole world was a bit of a shitshow today as the problem went far beyond airlines and also affected banks & financial institutions, law enforcement and other first responders.
It should serve as a wake up call about how dependent we are on computers in this digital age.
Posts: 3933 | Location: California | Registered: 01 January 2009
Originally posted by DLS: I heard this described as the largest internet failure in history. Both Microsoft and Crowdstrike calling it a software problem associated with an update. Sounds like the whole world was a bit of a shitshow today as the problem went far beyond airlines and also affected banks & financial institutions, law enforcement and other first responders.
It should serve as a wake up call about how dependent we are on computers in this digital age.
Total incompetence!
Software updates should be tried on a local network, not uploaded to the world!
I hope Crowdstrike get a big fine, and Microsoft should change their Falcon software!
Apparently 40% of people in the UK use their phones for payments, non has cash!
And Southwest Airlines running Windows 3.1 and unaffected. Though, they had a big outage in the last year or so that was isolated to them.
I've been in the IT industry 32 years (not with Crowdstrike nor MSFT) and upgrades are always the biggest risk.
"Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid" -- Ronald Reagan
"Ignorance of The People gives strength to totalitarians."
Want to make just about anything work better? Keep the government as far away from it as possible, then step back and behold the wonderment and goodness.
I work for a multibillion dollar corporation and we were blessedly unaffected. I know some of our clients were affected in either ability to operate their businesses.
I was also personally unaffected as I always wait a while when a patch is released. I know this one was a push update but thankfully it didn’t hurt me.
A good friend works at HD and they had big register problems.
DRSS Kreighoff 470 NE Valmet 412 30/06 & 9.3x74R
Posts: 1993 | Location: Denver | Registered: 31 May 2010
I was supposed to leave Vegas early this morning. Flight was cancelled . I was rebooked . Now this flight is 2:45 late . I am guessing that I get stuck in LAX.
Originally posted by larryshores: I was supposed to leave Vegas early this morning. Flight was cancelled . I was rebooked . Now this flight is 2:45 late . I am guessing that I get stuck in LAX.
Sucks . It has been expensive .
Frankly, if at all possible, I would delay my flight for at least a week!
Seems flights from the Far east are not affected as much.
