Flight disruption expected to continue after outages

Disruption to flights is expected to continue across the UK after massive outages hit computer systems globally on Friday.

Airports have said their systems are working again but that journeys could still be affected by delays and cancellations into the weekend.

A number of airports have said passengers should continue to check for potential disruption affecting their flights before they travel.

The outages came on one of the busiest days of the year, with many schools in England and Wales having broken up for summer this week.

GPs, pharmacies, banks, payment systems, and train services were also affected.

The problems were caused by a faulty software update for Microsoft Windows issued by cyber-security firm Crowdstrike.

London Gatwick said its system were “operating as normal” but that “some delays and cancellations will however continue this evening and over the weekend”.

Manchester Airport, where check-in was for a period on Friday being carried out out manually, said its check-in systems were up and running but that flights “may still be subject to delays and cancellations”.

Belfast International said it was operating as normal but that “we recommend passengers keep in contact with their airlines”.

As of Friday evening, 338 flights in and out of the UK – 167 departures and 171 arrivals – had been cancelled, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

Delayed and cancelled flights can often have knock-on effects beyond the initial disruption because planes and crews are not where they had been scheduled to be.

On the rail network, National Rail said the issue was no longer affecting operators, though some operators are still advising customers to check their journey before travelling.

The outages meant several retailers – including Morrisons and Waitrose – were unable to take card payments for the part of the day, while TV channel Sky News was briefly off air.

GPs struggled to access their records systems, which include online bookings. Pharmacy services, such as access to prescriptions, have also been affected.

In a social media post on Friday, Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz said he was “deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption” caused by the outages, though stressed that they were not the result of a security breach or cyber attack.

He later told the company’s customers in an open letter: “You have my commitment to provide full transparency on how this occurred and steps we’re taking to prevent anything like this from happening again.”