A major technology outage of Microsoft services is disrupting systems worldwide and directly affecting travelers at Philadelphia International Airport, as well as a number of city services.
City officials were notified around 2 a.m. Friday morning about a planned software update from cybersecurity firm Cyberstrike with a few coding errors that left a number of a number of businesses and local government services offline. Melissa Scott, chief information officer for the city, confirmed it was not a cyber attack.
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As of 12:30 p.m. Friday, all airlines are operational, Philadelphia International Airport CEO Atif Saeed said. So far, 87 flights were cancelled and 126 were delayed with more expected as the day goes on. Passengers have generally been accepting and understanding of the situation, Saeed said.
Calls to the police and fire department and 911 services are all currently operational, Mayor Cherelle Parker said during an afternoon update. The city's Office of Emergency Management said that it found no critical life safety issues.
The Philadelphia Water Department's emergency desk is down and contact center staff cannot assist with billing questions, although self-service options are available.
Most normal Department of Human Services operations have resumed, although the hotline operations for the child welfare office are impacted. City officials are working on a manual workaround and phones are operable, Parker said. The Office of Homeless Services intake capacity also is affected, but placements are still occurring.
The Philadelphia court system closed Friday due to the issue.
City employees' systems were completely inoperable as of this morning, and IT technicians have been logging into the servers and computers to delete the update. Scott said that officials will continue working into the weekend on non-emergency repairs until the issue is fixed.
"All of our departments have been working tirelessly since this morning and we're going to continue to to work tirelessly," Scott said. "Everything is necessary."
CBS Philadelphia also reported that Amtrak riders at 30th Street Station had problems paying with credit cards and cash. Systems at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Wegmans also were among those affected by computer issues.
PennDOT said its drivers license centers, customer call centers and some online services were impacted by the outage, but returned around 11 a.m.
SEPTA stated that the outage did not affect its services or systems.
Due to worldwide system connectivity issues, many of PennDOT’s services are unavailable at this time. (1/3)
— PA Department of Transportation (@PennDOTNews) July 19, 2024
Multiple airlines are reporting system outages that are impacting flights at #PHLAirport and around the world.
Please check with your airline for the latest flight status information. pic.twitter.com/6SwOaXS0ip— PHLAirport (@PHLAirport) July 19, 2024
As of 7:30 a.m., there had been 45 flight delays flights and 58 cancellations at the airport, spokesperson Heather Redfin told the Inquirer.
People traveling through PHL can check their flight statuses online or contact their airlines for more information. American Airlines said its operations have safely resumed, but United and Delta are among the airlines still facing computer issues, resuming some flights and warning that others may experience delays Friday.
The Microsoft outage is linked to CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz clarified Friday morning that the issue comes from "a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts" and that a fix has been deployed.
PhillyVoice Staff Writer Michaela Althouse contributed to this story.
