Global tech outage still halts flights at MSP

A major cyber outage caused by an overnight software upgrade created chaos for travelers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and airports around the globe Friday, grounding thousands of flights and disrupting Minnesota businesses, hospitals, government services and even the morning rush hour commute.

The outage, which affected Microsoft Windows operating systems, forced the state’s Driver and Vehicle Services exam stations to administer written road tests with pen and paper. Anybody trying to access the Department of Public Safety website was greeted with a message that read “service unavailable.”

In the Twin Cities, the biggest impact was felt at MSP, where more than 140 arrival and departure flights were canceled before noon on Friday.

On Saturday, at least 89 arrival and departure flights were canceled just after noon and 78 were delayed. Airport spokesman John Welbes said the brunt of flight cancellations passed on Friday, but advised people flying out of MSP to check the status of their airline’s flight before going to the airport.

“Just like with winter storms, if flights are canceled in other parts of the country, they don’t make it here,” airport spokesman Jeff Lea said Friday. “We could see the domino effect.”

At countless establishments, computers crashed and displayed the “blue screen of death.” Officials in Ramsey and Anoka counties, among others, reported some curtailed services because of downed computers.

At hospitals and health care organizations, the outage affected everything from some electronic medical records and dictation applications to individual workstations and some medical equipment and machines.

“Hospitals and health systems are assessing impacts and implementing workarounds and fixes as quickly as possible,” the Minnesota Hospital Association said.

Some state Department of Revenue systems were knocked offline, curtailing the ability for some to file returns and make payments through e-Services, the department said.

The outage affecting Microsoft systems appears to be related to a software update by the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. The issue arose as the company applied a software update containing a bug, leading to a “negative interaction,” CEO George Kurtz told NBC’s “Today” show.

“It wasn’t a cyberattack. It was related to a content update,” Kurtz said. “We identified it quickly and remediated it.

“We are working with each and every customer to bring them back online. We are deeply sorry for the impact we have caused to customers, travelers, to anybody affected by this.”

At MSP, the lines at Terminal 1′s check-in counters and security checkpoints were hundreds deep for much of Friday morning.

Sharon Kelly was trying to get from her home in Wisconsin to Pennsylvania for her daughter’s wedding on Saturday, only to learn her flight to Philadelphia was canceled. She had planned to meet with her grandson, who lost a leg in Afghanistan, then drive two hours to the wedding. Now he will have to get himself there — if he makes it in on a flight from Denver.

Kelly was using her laptop to try to find a new flight after Delta Air Lines told her in a recorded message that it may take nine hours before she could speak to somebody. She did her best to stay calm.

“I used to travel for work all the time, so I learned years ago it doesn’t help to get all crazy because it doesn’t do any good,” Kelly said. “Most of the people that are working here, it’s not their fault. I always felt you got more help if you were nice to people,” she said.

Hometown airline Sun Country canceled all flights scheduled to depart before 7 a.m. A while later, the airline said it was resuming some flights, “but we are expecting additional cancellations today. Our ticket counter agents and customer reps cannot rebook travel now because of downed systems.”

Delta, the dominant carrier at MSP, said it resumed some departures around 7 a.m. after halting all flights earlier in the morning. The airline had canceled 619 flights nationwide because of the outage, including 78 at MSP as of 10:45 a.m.

The airline issued travel waivers, allowing customers with flights Friday to make changes to their itineraries and rebook without incurring fare differences, so long as they travel by Wednesday.

Many travelers were still in the dark on their flight status. Rayna Johnson of Grand Rapids, Minn., was trying to get to the FairWell music festival in Oregon with her family. They were only halfway down the line at a security checkpoint for a flight leaving in 30 minutes. Johnson said she didn’t have any information about what to do if they missed the flight because the airline’s app wasn’t working.

Finesse Bartlett of West Palm Beach, Fla., was trying to get home with her husband, two children and dog after spending a relaxing week at the lake visiting her husband’s hometown of Fergus Falls, Minn.

“We’re chilling, actually, because we had a good long week [off]. We’ve got the hot spot for them,” she said, gesturing at the kids quietly playing games on their phones.

Lines were moving slowly as only three of 26 kiosks in the baggage check area were working, Bartlett said an airport employee told her.

More than 2,195 flights at airports across the country had been canceled by 11:45 a.m., according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.com. More than 3,500 flights worldwide had been canceled and more than 31,300 delayed, the website said.

United and American airlines said they also were affected by the outage but were slowly resuming operations by later in the morning. Both airlines issued travel waivers.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation said it was not able to lower the gates of the Interstate 394 reversible E-ZPass lane for the morning rush hour commute, spokeswoman Anne Meyer said.

Elsewhere, WCCO-TV posted early Friday that its broadcast was delayed by the outage. “The Microsoft outage is delaying the broadcast of ‘WCCO This Morning.’ We’re working to rectify the issue and go live on the air ASAP,” the station said shortly after 5 a.m.

Small businesses felt the pinch, too. At Vet Partners, which has five independently owned pet clinics in the metro area, credit card processing systems were not working.

“If clients are able to pay with cash or a check, we’ll take that,” said Rachel Covi, practice owner of Vet Partners Minneapolis.

Star Tribune staff writers Burl Gilyard, Christopher Snowbeck and Kyeland Jackson contributed to this story.