Flight delays, manual check-in: Microsoft outage impacts Indian carriers

Vistara also said that it was experiencing technical challenges across various aspects of its operations due to a global outage at its “service provider’s end”. (Photo: Reuters)

The global outage of Microsoft’s apps and services on Friday has significantly impacted the services of Indian carriers, causing them to delay their flights and resort to manual check-ins at airports.

According to flightradar24.com, a total of 245 flights (181 departures and 64 arrivals) faced delays till 1.10 PM on Friday at Delhi International Airport. India’s busiest airport currently handles about 1,260 daily scheduled flights. Delhi International Airport Limited, which manages the airport, said it is closely working with all “stakeholders” to minimise the inconvenience to flyers.

Sanjiv Kapoor, Executive Vice President (Strategies) of Saudia Airlines, was present at Delhi airport on Friday afternoon. He said on X: “Due to a major global system outage, all gate screens at DEL (Delhi airport) are blank. Flights are being held at the gate. Some gates are boarding passengers and holding on board, some flights are holding passengers at the gate itself, which is better. Seems to be impacting many airports and airlines.”

Mumbai International Airport, India’s second busiest, has also been dramatically impacted. A total of 273 flights (192 departures and 81 arrivals) faced delays till 1.10 PM on Friday. The Mumbai airport currently handles about 870 daily scheduled flights.

Microsoft said on X that the company is investigating an issue impacting its users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services.

It said that the preliminary root cause for this disruption was a configuration change “in a portion of our Azure backend workloads”, which resulted in connectivity failures that affected downstream Microsoft 365 services dependent on these connections. Azure is the cloud computing platform of Microsoft.

IndiGo, India’s largest carrier, said that its systems across the network have been impacted by an ongoing issue with Microsoft Azure, which has resulted in increased wait times at its contact centres and airports. “You may experience slower check-ins and longer queues. We are all hands on deck and are working relentlessly to restore stability and normalcy. Our digital team is also coordinating closely with Microsoft Azure to resolve these issues swiftly,” it noted.

SpiceJet said it was experiencing technical challenges with its “service provider”, affecting online services including booking and check-in functionalities. “As a result, we have activated manual check-in and boarding processes across airports. We kindly request passengers with upcoming travel plans to arrive at the airport earlier than usual to complete check-in at our counters,” it added.

Akasa said that due to infrastructure issues with its “service provider”, some of its online services, including booking and check-in services, will be temporarily unavailable. “Currently we are following manual check-in and boarding processes at the airports and hence request passengers with immediate travel plans to reach the airport early to check-in at our counters,” it added.

Vistara also said that it was experiencing technical challenges across various aspects of its operations due to a global outage at its “service provider’s end”.

According to flightradar24.com, a total of 138 flights (102 departures and 36 arrivals) faced delays till 1.10 PM on Friday at Bengaluru International Airport, which handles about 690 daily scheduled flights.

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