Europe’s airlines and airports recover after IT outage

Europe’s airports have been getting back to a more normal level of cancellations after their systems were hit by the global IT outage on Friday (19 July) and over the weekend.

The problem was caused by a faulty update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, which affected around 8.5 million devices using the Microsoft Windows operating system. It also impacted TV broadcasters, health services and other sectors around the world.

This IT meltdown led to the grounding of thousands of flights on Friday and across the weekend, with US carriers particularly affected.

According to figures from aviation data company OAG, Delta was the most affected major airline globally with around 25 per cent of scheduled flights grounded, which added up to 4,675 cancellations across the three days.

In Europe, easyJet suffered the most impact with 469 cancellations between Friday and Sunday (19-21 July), including more than 12 per cent of its schedule on Sunday. Although the airline was also impacted by weather-related air traffic control restrictions over the weekend.

Meanwhile, Lufthansa suffered 281 cancellations over the three days, followed by Ryanair (271) and British Airways (131).

OAG’s chief analyst John Grant said in a blog: “Across the European carriers, easyJet increased the number of cancellations as a combination of crew duty hours and aircraft resources continued to impact the business, whilst carriers such as British Airways saw cancellations halve from Friday’s level over the weekend.”

Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport had a cancellation rate of 11 per cent on Friday but this had fallen to a “more normal” percentage of 1.4 per cent by Friday. Around 5 per cent of services were axed at Paris Charles de Gaulle, although this was down to 2 per cent by Sunday.

By comparison, less than 2 per cent of flights had to be cancelled at London Heathrow on Friday and this dropped to less than 1 per cent on both Saturday and Sunday. Frankfurt saw nearly 4 per cent of flights cancelled on Friday but only 2 per cent over the weekend.

“The impact of the CrowdStrike IT outage will linger on for a few more days yet and will stay in the minds of travellers with cancelled holidays for even longer,” added Grant.