Flight cancellations and delays fell on Saturday as airlines worked to resolve the results of a world IT outage that caused chaos at airports and other industries a day earlier.
According to flight tracking website FlightAware, greater than 1,200 flights were canceled on Saturday, including over 900 within the United States. On Friday, greater than 5,000 flights were canceled worldwide, including about 3,400 within the United States. More than 12,000 flights within the United States were delayed.
The disruptions resembled severe weather reminiscent of a winter or tropical storm, but airlines had no time to arrange for the disruptions and subsequently needed to rush to accommodate passengers before a summer weekend.
A failed software update from CrowdStrike caused a significant outage of Microsoft systems in firms around the globe.
“I am proud of our teams around the world who worked around the clock today to get our operations safely back on track and take care of our customers after the worst technology outage in history,” said United Airlines COO Toby Enqvist in a press release late Friday. “While we have had to cancel and postpone far more flights than we ever wanted, we are ready to return to near-normal operations on Saturday.”
About 7% of United's mainline flights were canceled on Saturday, in comparison with 22% on Friday, based on FlightAware data. Delta Airlines About 10% of Saturday flights were cancelled, an improvement from 31% the day prior to this.
The airlines waived fare differences and charges for affected customers.
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