Travel hell continues after world's biggest IT disaster (2024)

Hundreds of ticketless families are causing massive jams as they turn up at busy ports after flights were axed with thousands of Brits stranded abroad today.

Travel hell continues this weekend after the world's biggest IT disaster struck, with thousands of Brits stranded abroad.

Some passengers stuck overseas have been told they won't be able to get home until Wednesday at the latest after 50,000 flights going to, from or flying within the UK were hit by the disruption.

The Port of Dover said early this morning that it was dealing with 'hundreds of displaced' airport passengers and urged customers to ensure they had a booking before arrival.

The port chief later said: 'We are here to service people who want to travel. So I would say to displaced airport passengers 'come on down. We have the capacity'.'

Ferry operator DFDS said on X that there were wait times of up to 120 minutes at Dover border controls and 30 minutes at check-in.

Thecatastrophic IT failure impacted 300million computers worldwide and it could take weeks for all of them to be fixed.

Experts also warned the error by security firm CrowdStrike which hit Microsoft systems will cost the global economy trillions.

The Port of Dover X account posted this morning to warn: 'We are seeing hundreds of displaced airport passengers arriving at the Port, please ensure you have a booking before arrival.'

It also posted on X that approach roads were 'slow moving', with a 60-minute wait time in the buffer zone.

But now the chief executive Doug Bannister has said: 'We operate a turn up and go system here. However, we do insist you have a [booking] on busy days, even if people are doing this on the drive down.

'The greater visibility we have the better. But we are here to service people who want to travel. So I would say to displaced airport passengers 'come on down. We have the capacity'.'

He said the port is expecting 10,000 cars today - 2,000 up from yesterday.

A Kent County Council said ferries and Le Shuttle will not take passengers without a booking today because of the outage.

'If your start to the summer holidays has been impacted by the IT outage, you may be thinking of swapping a plane for a channel crossing.

'But both the ferries out of #Dover and Le Shuttle are not taking turn up passengers today.

'Please make a booking before heading to the port.'

The meltdown affected planes, trains, hospitals, GPs, banks, and shops globally, falling on what was projected to be the busiest day for the aviation industry in five years.

IT experts were battling overnight to finish bringing healthcare, financial and travel companies' systems back online after they were crippled by the faulty update early on Friday.

Others could be feeling the pinch for a few days - as an organisation representing payroll workers warned that issues caused by the meltdown could delay people being paid.

CrowdStrike admitted responsibility for the issuewhich was caused by a buggy update to its Falcon security software.

The error rendered countless computers relied upon by airports, payment systems, restaurants, the NHSand even a Formula 1 team useless until the issue was identified.

Adding to the chaos, The National Lottery said it is investigating this morning after users reported being unable to access its app and website.

It is unclear if the issues facing the lottery are connected to Friday's outage.

Passengers hoping to catch flights across the world were hunkering down in terminals last night, while a firm representing payroll processors warned millions risk missing their payday because of the CrowdStrike issue.

The travel disruption is extending to today, with thousands of Brits stranded abroad.

There have been1,639 flights cancelled so far today, after yesterday saw a total of 6,855 flights cancelled worldwide.

There will be around 28,000 Brits stranded abroad but the worst place is Naples, with almost 1,000 Brits stuck in the city.

Simon Caulder, the travel correspondent for The Independent, warned this is just the start of the 'great getaway'.

Speaking on Sky News, he also slammed airlines for not following the rules: 'The airline has a legal duty to get you to your destination. They won't be paying any extra compensation but any airline will have to get you there without it costing you a penny extra.

'It's a real shame airlines aren't stepping up and meeting the rules which have been in place for 17 years now and are falling short.'

Hundreds of people have joined long check-in queues at Gatwick Airport tpday.

Charles, 50, from the Midlands, said he was glad he was in a queue to leave the country rather than arriving to the UK.

'I'm glad it's because we're going out. It'd be different if we were going back.'

He said his British Airways flight to Jamaica was in three hours, but he arrived early to get through the queues.

'Because of the situation yesterday on the news we just took a bit more time just to get here. I'm glad we did, to be honest with you.'

He said he believed the long queues on Saturday morning had been caused by everyone on long haul flights arriving at the airport early. He added: 'So they've all just given themselves an extra hour or two.'

Some 167 flights scheduled to depart UK airports were axed on Friday, with others delayed, while 171 flights due to land in the UK were cancelled, following the technical glitch.

Aviation analytics company Cirium said 5,078 flights - or 4.6 per cent of those scheduled - were cancelled globally on Friday, including the 167 UK departures.

Industry expert Adam Leon Smith of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, warned that it could even take 'weeks' for all computers and systems to be fully restored.

One Brit was stuck at Heathrow Airport for 10 hours trying to fly to Naples for her best friend's wedding which is this afternoon.

Emma Rowley told MailOnline: 'I was at Heathrow for 10 hours yesterday waiting to fly, before our (supposedly morning) flight to Naples finally got cancelled as the crew ran out of legal time to work.

'I got auto rebooked on a flight today to Rome then Naples - but woke up this morning to see that had been cancelled too.

'So my group of six are missing our friend's wedding in Italy which is this afternoon - really sad. Some flights got through to our destination, but there was absolutely no way of getting there for us - flights were either full or getting cancelled.

'For some reason the airport was absolutely boiling all day which didn't help. I don't know if that was related to the meltdown or just unfortunate.

'I am now busy trying to cancel the Sunday flight that the BA system has autobooked me on - and is way too late.'

Speaking to Sky News, Lorenzo Angiollilo said how he was supposed to fly from Bari in Italy to Edinburgh but his flight was cancelled.

His next plane was forced to land in Milan because it ran out of fuel and then he took a flight to London, where he is now waiting for his last flight to the Scottish city.

'The airport staff got me onto another flight but that was delayed five hours as well, so I spent eight hours altogether waiting at the airport.

'We eventually got on the plane to London Stansted around midnight. But there wasn't enough fuel to get there so we diverted to Milan.

'We were on the ground for around an hour and tensions were getting high, people were getting angry. It was quite close to a physical confrontation.

'I arrived at Stansted around 4am this morning and coming through arrivals, through baggage claim, there were hundreds of bags just laying there - not even on conveyor belts.There were hundreds sleeping on the floor.'

Mr Caulder told BBC Radio 5: 'Just looking at UK people, travelling in, within or out, it's 50,000 people waking up where they didn't expect to be because they were booked on one of the 350 flights which were cancelled yesterday. Absolutely shocking numbers.

'Unfortunately, things are going to get slightly worse before they get better. We're not in the hundreds this morning but we're certainly in the dozens of cancellations as the airlines try to restore their operations after all the messing around yesterday.

'For anyone whose flight is cancelled, the airline which cancelled your flight has to find you a new flight as soon as possible and put you in a hotel and give you meals until that can happen.

'Naples is full of Brits who couldn't get home yesterday. Getting on a thousand Brits trying to get back. Today they can look at other possibilities but it's going to be slow.'

Families stranded in Tenerife have been left outraged after they were fed a small salad, an apple and half a baguette at a hotel last night.

Laura Snowdon told MailOnline: 'My family and I plus another family we travelled with are stuck in Tenerife. We were due to fly home last night, we were told the flight was delayed three hours way before leaving our hotel, and then on arrival to the airport they cancelled to flight to Gatwick.

Have YOU been left stranded? Email emily.davies@mailonline.co.uk

'We have teenagers and a seven-year-old with us. We waited five hours and then all of a sudden the reps selected randoms from the queue of people and sent them to buses.

'The reps didn't prioritise those with young kids, there was no order, anyone was just getting into the line to get on buses.

'We were told TUI would call the hotel at 8am today to update us- that hasn't happened.

'The hotel we are in has now said we all have to leave by 12 as they are fully booked today.

'We've had no update from TUI, nor has the hotel so we could be walking the streets of Tenerife with all our stuff with no clue of where to go or what to do!'

Another stranded Brit managed to get back from Tenerife but told MailOnline their light was delayed by three hours and landed in the wrong part of the UK.

Lorraine Currums said: 'Before we left Tenerife we were informed by the pilot that we wouldn't be landing in Bournemouth but East Midlands.

'We were assured there would be coaches to transfer us back to Bournemouth once we'd landed. We arrived at East Midlands airport at 2:30am and only got picked up by a taxi at 6.10am!

'Furious doesn't come close! Travelling over 12 hours with two children who are beyond exhausted.'

According to Vasileios Karagiannopoulos, a cybersecurity researcher at the University of Portsmouth, the problems could 'take days to resolve, if not weeks'.

Speaking to the Financial Times, he said that problems were 'so global and extensive across systems that IT support might be sparse due to the demand'.

The effects of what is likely to be the biggest IT meltdown in history are being felt across the world - from travel providers, financial systems and banks to Times Square in New York, where its iconic billboards featured the much-lamented 'blue screen of death' that heralds a Windows crash.

Melanie Pizzey, the CEO of the Global Payroll Association, toldQuartzit had been contacted by 'numerous clients... who have been unable to access their payroll software due to the Microsoft outage'.

She added: 'We could see a backlog with regard to processing payrolls for the coming month end which may delay employees from receiving their monthly wage.'

CrowdStrike itself has shed billions of dollars in value while its CEO, George Kurtz, made a grovelling apology on American television. He personally lost millions as his company's share price dipped by a fifth during Friday trading.

The issue was caused by the firm's Falcon software, which is used by around 29,000 customers - accounting for a reported 24 per cent of the world's cybersecurity market - to protect their computers from hackers.

It requires what is known as 'kernel' access to Windows - access to critical parts of the system that allow it to operate - in order to provide complete protection from cyberattacks.

But creating any issues at kernel level can stop computers from working at all - and this is exactly what CrowdStrike did with its update, which was automatically pushed out to customers overnight, creating the world's biggest IT disaster.

CEO George Kurtz also apologised for events, saying he is 'deeply sorry', and made clear it was 'not a security or cyber incident'.

Airports across the UK - including London Gatwick, Heathrow Airport, Manchester Airport and Belfast International Airport - stressed that passengers should check with airlines for any delays or cancellations before travelling over the weekend.

A spokesperson for London Gatwick said: 'Following earlier global issues, our airport IT systems are now operating as normal and we expect the majority of our flights to operate as usual tomorrow.

'Some delays and cancellations will however continue this evening and over the weekend. We strongly advise passengers to check with their airline for the latest updates.'

A spokesperson for Manchester Airport said: 'Check-in and boarding for the affected airlines are being carried out manually and are taking longer than normal resulting in some long queues at check-in.

'Some flights may be impacted by delays and schedules have been affected by issues caused by the effects of the global IT outage at airports all over the world. This means some flights could be cancelled by airlines at short notice.'

Hundreds of flights were cancelled at British airports yesterday, with the disruption set to continue over the weekend and ruin summer holidays after aircraft and crews were left 'out of position'.

People stranded at Heathrow could be seen bedding down for the night on plastic airport seating, while others leant on their suitcases for comfort.

Frustrated passenger Jessica Lee, who was stuck in airport queues for hours on Friday, told MailOnline: 'TUI has cancelled our entire package holiday to Rhodes including hotel after 9/10 hours of waiting at Manchester airport.

'Family with two kids, one is 19 months. It has been a truly horrendous day and we have no idea what to do.'

Experts have warned the effects of the CrowdStrike crash could be felt for days to come.

Dr Amit Rawal, a lecturer in management at City University of London, said: 'Further implications of this IT outage are expected given the various networks that rely on an update from Crowdstrike.

'Over the course of the next few days, this will cause a number of delays and further cancellations on flights as they will not all be able to fly at their scheduled times.

'Airlines are likely to have several customers seeking compensation.'

Meanwhile,passengers found themselves stuck at train stations across the country - with hundreds of commuters stranded on London Euston's concourse late into the evening.

CrowdStrike's stock tumbled in value when the US markets opened on Friday as investors digested the impact of the outage.

Shares slid by over 8 per cent at the start of trading, knocking around 10 billion US dollars (£7.8 billion) off its market value. The largest financial markets in the US and UK fell during the trading session as other companies were also affected.

The flawed update caused major infrastructure to grind to a halt with computer systems knocked offline, and many devices were showing the so-called 'blue screen of death' as they got stuck in an endless cycle of trying to reboot themselves, affecting key sectors across the country.

The outage caused disruption in 'the majority of GP practices', NHS England said, and ambulance services also reported increased pressure on 999 and NHS 111 services with calls from patients who were unable to contact other NHS providers because of the IT issues.

Across England, GP surgeries reported being unable to book appointments or access patient records as their EMIS Web system went down.

Sky News briefly went off air on Friday morning and Britain's biggest train company Govia Thameslink Railway warned passengers to expect disruption because of 'widespread IT issues'.

Professor Ciaran Martin, the founding chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), also said it was hard to estimate how long it would take to recover from the outage.

'The underlying problem is fixed and the fixes are being implemented,' he said.

'Some industries can recovery quickly. But others like aviation will have long backlogs. That said, I'd be surprised if we were still facing serious problems this time next week.'

Experts warned users to 'remain vigilant' against potential scams as systems recover.

In a letter to customers and partners, Mr Kurtz said: 'We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this.

'I encourage everyone to remain vigilant and ensure that you're engaging with official CrowdStrike representatives.'

The NCSC highlighted an increase in phishing referencing the outage.

On its website, the company urged organisations to ensure mitigations are in place and advised individuals to be alert to suspicious emails or messages.

'Note that an increase in phishing referencing this outage has already been observed, as opportunistic malicious actors seek to take advantage of the situation,' the NCSC said.

In a video shared on social media, anxious passengers could be seen stood up at Euston watching the train departure board as they waited for news about how they can make their onward travels.

Travellers hoping to enjoy the hottest day of the year instead found themselves trapped inside as the technical fault caused travel delays enmasse.

Speaking to NBC's Today Show, Mr Kurtz, who is married to Annamaria Kurtz with whom he shares a son, Alexander, said there had been a 'negative interaction' between the update and Microsoft's operating system.

He added 'it could be some time for some systems' to return to normal as they would not 'just automatically recover'.

Microsoft suggested to some customers to reboot their computers up to 15 times to resolve the error,404 Mediareported.

It represents a sorry chapter in CrowdStrike's otherwise highly successful story - as it has collected an enviable list of customers in its short 13 year history who could now be rethinking their cybersecurity provider.

'This is clearly a major black eye for CrowdStrike and the stock will be under pressure,' said Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities.

Kurtz co-founded the firm in 2011 withDmitri Alperovitch and Gregg Marston, who retired in 2015 and was replaced as Chief Financial Officer by Burt Podbere.

He made his name early on by co-writing one of the bestselling books on cybersecurity, Hacking Exposed, with Stuart McClure and Joel Scambray.

He then founding his own tech firm, Firmstone, which was later acquired by antivirus company McAfee, where he then served as chief technology officer.

Alongside Alperovitch and Marston, with whom he had worked in his old jobs, Kurtz then started Crowdstrike, quickly collecting high-profile customers that it shows off on its website.

It is perhaps best known for the key role it played in the investigation into the hacking of the US Democratic party during the 2016 Presidential election which found Russian intelligence services had been involved.

It was first to publicly raise concerns about Russia's interference in the 2016 election and this assessment was later confirmed by US intelligence agencies.

A number of former FBI cybersecurity agents sit on CrowdStrike's executive team including Shawn Henry, Chief Security Officer who joined in 2012 after retiring from the FBI senior executive service.

But Friday's issue was tied to Falcon - CrowdStrike's leading product that works to detect cyberattacks.

As a cybersecurity product, CrowdStrike's Falcon platform is designed to run silently, eliminating viruses and attempted hacks without causing a fuss.

But a faulty update pushed to the Falcon product at a Windows system level turned CrowdStrike into a household name for the wrong reasons on Friday.

And the fault has exposed the fragility associated with large parts of the world's infrastructure, which depends on the internet - and protection from threats online - in order to operate.

CrowdStrike has grown rich protecting top brands for Internet breaches, and the irony that it is now responsible for an international crisis wasn't lost onElon Musk,who tweeted: 'The antivirus was the virus.'

'This is a function of the very hom*ogenous technology that goes into the backbone of all of our IT infrastructure,' said Gregory Falco, an assistant professor of engineering at Cornell University.

'What really causes this mess is that we rely on very few companies, and everybody uses the same folks, so everyone goes down at the same time.'

Chris Dimitriadis, chief global strategy officer at ISACA, a professional IT association, described the incident as a 'digital pandemic'.

He said: 'When one service provider in the digital supply chain is affected, the whole chain can break, causing large-scale outages.

'This incident is a clear example of what could be termed a digital pandemic, a single point of failure impacting millions of lives globally.'

Broadcastersincluding Sky News, airports, airlines, train companies, restaurants, financial platforms and football clubs were unable to operate because of the faulty update.

And there might be more headaches to come - with insurers braced for a raft of business interruption claims, if they are covered by cybersecurity policies.

Experts have pointed out these normally cover for cyberattacks - not snafus like the one created by CrowdStrike earlier. But CrowdStrike itself could face lawsuits.

'Airlines (and other industries) might have rights under their contracts that allow them financial or other remuneration based on the CrowdStrike outage,' said Sam Levine of specialty insurance broker CAC.

The Cobra system that deals with matters of national emergency or major disruption has been fired up to manage the UK Government's response, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden said this morning.

Ministers are in touch with their sectors to tackle the fallout from the IT failures, with Transport Secretary Louise Haigh saying she is working 'at pace with industry' after trains and flights ground to a halt.

Mr McFadden, who is in charge of the Whitehall machine, said: 'Many people are being affected by Friday's IT outages impacting services across the country and globally.

'Ministers are working with their sectors and respective industries on the issue. I am in close contact with teams co-ordinating our response through the COBR response system.'

GPs have been hit, with surgeries in Cumbria, Cheshire, Yorkshire and the West Midlands taking to social media to say their systems had been affected. Two thirds of GP practices in Northern Ireland were affected.

The issue has hit the EMIS system, which allows doctors to book appointments, view patient notes, order prescriptions and make referrals.

Speaking to MailOnline, a practice manager of a GP practice in Berkshire said: 'We are completely dead in the water.

'We can't see any patients are systems are down. It's not clinically safe to treat patients because we can't see their notes.'

Airlines including KLM, American Airlines, Delta, United and Ryanair halted flights while Gatwick and Stansted airports cancelled up to 90 percent of their flights.

Disruption also affected Heathrow and Edinburgh airports; Edinburgh bosses say 'things are returning to normal' but have advised passengers to check with their airlines on their flights.

Heathrow said: 'Flights continue to be operational and passengers are advised to check with their airlines for the latest flight information.'

Katie Turner, 52, was waiting at Gatwick with her daughter Poppy Clements, who turned 18 yesterday and was due to take her first flight alone to see a friend in Rome this morning.

Katie said: 'We've moved about 20-feet forward in four hours and that's only because more and more people have joined the queue, so we've all had to move up slightly. This is my daughter's first solo flight and I'm waiting with her.'

Poppy, who lives in Crystal Palace, South London, added: 'I really hope I get to fly out. I've called my friend in Rome to warn her....and she said: 'Be prepared to be there all day!''

Rafa de Miguel arrived four hours before his Ryanair flight to Madrid at Stansted when he 'sensed the mood change' as passengers found out about the Microsoft outage.

The 56-year-old says staff were forced to write out boarding passes and luggage tags in pen because the IT system was down.

He said: 'It's a perfect example of us being too reliant on the internet. It goes down and the world goes crazy.'

Texas resident Stephanie Thompson's flight from Edinburgh to Heathrow to Dallas was cancelled - so she has paid £5,300 for alternate flights.

She told the PA news agency: 'I was on hold with American (Airlines) for about an hour and 10 minutes before I finally hung up.

'We just paid 6,800 dollars for a one-way trip home, hopefully leaving tonight. I didn't know what else to do. I just wanted something to get us home.'

Student Jack O'Leary, who was queuing for a Ryanair flight to Dublin to go on holiday, said: 'We're quite understanding - it's a global outage and everything's pretty chaotic.'

Tina, 47, an American TV and radio host who had been hoping to fly to Barcelona from Gatwick this morning, said: 'We don't know what to do, do we stay and hope we can fly to Spain at some point or get back on the Gatwick Express and head back to London?'

The London Stock Exchange's Workspace news and data platform suffered outages, as did Barclays' Smart Investor platform, while Manchester United had to postpone a scheduled release of tickets.

Hospitality businesses such as Wetherspoons, McDonalds and Starbucks suffered problems with their payment systems due to the outages.

Kurtz admitted that CrowdStrike was at fault earlier, telling NBC's Today Show: 'We're deeply sorry...the global issues were caused by a single faulty content update.

'That update had a software bug in it and caused an issue with the Microsoft operating system...we identified this very quickly and remediated the issue.'

IT bosses described the issue as a 'digital pandemic affecting millions', with others fearing the disruption will last long into the weekend.

Kurtz is an avid car collector and racing driver, having competed in the GT World Challenge America - a North American sports car racing series. He also drives for CrowdStrike's own racing team.

So it is of little surprise that CrowdStrike boasts a top motorsports team as one of its clients - the Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 team, for which the company is a major sponsor.

But as a result, Mercedes engineers were left staring at pit wall screens at the Hungaroring circuit in Hungary as they tried to fix the IT bug.

A GP has said the global IT outage meant 'everything went down' in her surgery and warned the disruption would cause 'a lot more issues later on in the week'.

Asked about Friday's outage, Dr Fari Ahmad told BBC Breakfast: 'Everything went down. There are supposed to be some business continuity things that are supposed to help, but we couldn't access some of them. I know some places lost all their phone lines as well.

'People were struggling to get in. We were struggling to tell people what was going on. And if people did turn up, you had to see them without accessing their medical records. The doctors and the surgery went down to pen and paper.'

The National Pharmacy Association has warned that patients collecting prescriptions could still face disruption this weekend following the global IT outage.

Nick Kaye, chairman of the National Pharmacy Association, which represents independent community pharmacies in the UK, said: 'Systems are by and large back online and medicine deliveries have resumed in many community pharmacies today after the global IT outage.

'However, yesterday's outage will have caused backlogs and we expect services to continue to be disrupted this weekend as pharmacies recover.

'We urge people to be patient when visiting their local pharmacy and some may be still prioritising those patients with emergency prescriptions from their GP surgery.'

Travel association Abta urged holidaymakers to check with providers if there are 'any extra steps' they may need to take.

A spokesperson said: 'We're at the start of one of the busiest periods of travel, with some schools finishing for the summer yesterday and many more next week.

'Many people will be jetting off abroad - looking to escape the UK's unseasonable weather of late.

'With Spain, Turkey and Greece among the popular destinations for an overseas trip.

'If you are heading off on holiday this weekend - by whatever means - it's advisable to check with your travel provider if there are any extra steps you need to take, as some businesses are continuing to feel the impact of Friday's IT outage.'