Dozens of SLC flights canceled, delayed as tech outage disrupts global travel

SALT LAKE CITY — A global technology outage that grounded flights, knocked banks offline and media outlets off the air due to a faulty software update also impacted flights at the Salt Lake City International Airport on Friday.

FlightAware reported over 37,000 flights had been delayed worldwide and over 4,000 flights were canceled before 2 p.m. Friday. The biggest impacts were felt at Atlanta (305 flights canceled, 458 delayed), Chicago O’Hare (114 canceled, 322 delayed) and LaGuardia (101 canceled, 207 delayed).

At the Salt Lake airport, 230 flights had been delayed and 72 were canceled before 2 p.m. Friday. Delta led the way with 64 canceled flights and 130 delayed flights. SkyWest had 47 flights delayed and one canceled, followed by Southwest with 24 delayed flights. Frontier had canceled four flights and had four delayed.

All air traffic was stopped at the airport until 7 a.m. Friday as crews began to try and manage the backlog of flights at airports across the U.S. Arriving flights were delayed by an average of 57 minutes.

According to the Associated Press, the trouble with the update issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike and affecting computers running Microsoft Windows was not a hacking incident or cyberattack, according to CrowdStrike, which apologized and said a fix was on the way.

“We continue to work closely with airlines as they work to resume normal operations,” the Federal Aviation Administration posted on X. “Ground stops and delays will be intermittent at various airports as the airlines work through residual technology issues. Contact the airlines for more information.”

The FAA reported closures at LaGuardia, Las Vegas, Boston and Milwaukee and lengthy ground delays in Atlanta and SLC.

Gov. Spencer Cox posted that “no state IT platforms have been impacted by the CrowdStrike outage this morning. We will continue to monitor the situation.”

Salt Lake City police also confirmed that “all public safety operations have continued normally throughout the night and into this morning.”

What is CrowdStrike, the company linked to the global outage?

9:00 am:

WHOAH.😳

These check-in lines look like they do in peak holiday travel season. This is going to be a loonnnngggg day for travelers.

Every airline I can see has a line that’s building…@KSL5TV pic.twitter.com/ae6uJ6pbMo

— Karah Brackin (@kbontv) July 19, 2024

Passengers playing the waiting game

On Friday morning, KSL TV spoke to a few passengers, who had been waiting, waiting and waiting some more.

“Been here 12 and a half hours,” said Heidi Nielsen.

“I’ve been stuck here since about 8:30 last night,” said Sam Mcleary.

Mcleary was en route to Alaska to visit her twin brother when the chaos started.

“We were boarded, and then we sat, I think, an hour and a half on the plane. And they deboarded us for what was supposed to be 30 minutes, and then it became an hour and two hours. And then another hour,” Mcleary said.

Salt Lake City International Airport Spokesperson Nancy Volmer said Thursday night, some red eye flights were impacted by the cyber outage which triggered a backed up chain reaction for flights, specifically Delta, United, American, and Frontier Airlines. 

“So far, we’ve had about 45 cancellations and 67 delays,” Volmer said.

Other barriers

Airports across the country faced other barriers.

“Here at SLC, it impacted the airlines, but it did not impact any of the other operations. It did not impact our concessions. It did not impact any sort of the cooling system,” Volmer said.

The travel delays and cancelations have stacked on top of an already busy season. 

Volmer said there has been a boom in travel over the summer and the airport is exceptionally busy right now with nearly 26,000 passengers coming through the front door. 

Thankfully, flights are now up, and not all airlines were impacted.