Holidaymakers continue to face disruption as airlines try to recover after being hit by one of the biggest global IT meltdowns in recent history.
Travel plans were thrown into disarray on Friday when thousands of flights were cancelled internationally after a faulty software update hit Microsoft’s Windows operating system, causing chaos across many services with hospital appointments cancelled, payroll systems crashing and TV channels taken off the air.
Nearly 7,000 flights were cancelled worldwide on Friday, 408 of which were to and from the UK.
As of 10am on Saturday, 23 outbound and 25 return flights in the UK had been cancelled, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said IT systems at airports were “back up and operating normally”.
He said: “We are in constant communication with the industry. There remains no known safety or security issue arising from the outage.”
But he added: “Some delays and a small number of flight cancellations are expected today.”
Passengers at Heathrow Airport reported long queues and problems checking in for British Airways flights on Saturday.
Long check-in queues were also seen at Gatwick Airport on Saturday.
Port of Dover General Manager Doug Bannister said hundreds of displaced air passengers had arrived here in the hope of boarding the ferry.
He said: “We operate a turn up and go system here. However, on busy days we insist you book, even if people do it on the way down.”
Mr Bannister said the port was expecting more than 10,000 cars on Saturday, up from 8,000 the day before. “There’s no congestion in Dover town so far. The approach roads are busy but moving. Everything is going well.”
Travel association Abta urged holidaymakers to ask providers if there were any “extra steps” they needed to take.
Train passengers were also affected. On Friday, London Euston station was packed with hundreds of passengers after trains were delayed or cancelled. Problems continued into Saturday morning. In London Waterloo, passengers were unable to buy tickets from machines at the station, while in Paddington, QR code scanners stopped working.
Many airlines in the U.S. and airports in Asia have announced that they are restarting operations. Check-in services have resumed in Hong Kong, South Korea and Thailand, while flights in India, Indonesia and Singapore’s Changi Airport were largely back to normal as of Saturday afternoon.
“Check-in systems are back to normal [at Thailand’s five major airports]”There are no long queues at airports like we experienced yesterday,” Airports of Thailand chief Keerati Kitmanawat told reporters at Don Mueang airport in Bangkok.
Atlanta Airport, the world’s busiest airport by passenger traffic, said it was not affected by the outage but was working with “airline partners” who were affected.
While some airports have suspended all flights, in others airline staff have resorted to manual check-in for passengers.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) initially ordered all flights to be grounded “regardless of destination”, but airlines later said they were restoring service and clearing a backlog of flights.
India’s largest airline IndiGo announced the winding down of operations in a statement published on X.com.
“While the outage has been resolved and our systems are back online, we are working diligently to resume normal operations and expect this process to extend into the weekend,” the carrier said in a statement on Saturday.
A passenger told Agence France-Presse that the situation at Delhi Airport had returned to normal, with only minor delays to international flights.
Low-cost carrier AirAsia said it was still trying to get online and was “working around the clock to recover departure control systems”. It advised passengers to arrive at airports early and be ready for “manual check-in” at airline counters.
Chinese state media reported that airports in Beijing were not affected.
In Europe, departures and arrivals have reportedly resumed at major airports, including Berlin, which suspended all flights on Friday.
The software update that caused a huge uproar around the world came from US cybersecurity company CrowdStrike and caused many Microsoft Windows users to face a “blue screen” problem as their computers failed to start.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said he was “deeply sorry” and made it clear that this was “not a security or cyber incident.”
GP practices in England said they were unable to view patient records or make appointments, and pharmacy services were also affected.
Nick Kaye, president of the National Pharmacy Association, which represents independent community pharmacies, said Saturday that patients picking up their prescription drugs could still face disruptions this weekend.
“Systems have largely come back online and medicine deliveries have resumed at many community pharmacies today following the global IT outage,” he said.
“However, due to the outage yesterday, there will be a busy workload and we expect services to continue to be disrupted this weekend as pharmacies recover.
“We would advise people to be patient when visiting their local pharmacy and some may still be prioritising patients who are receiving emergency prescription medicines from their GP.”