A Microsoft outage is impacting airlines and dozens of flights in the New York City area, but subways and other trains are running as normal. CBS New York has live team coverage.
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00:00We are following breaking news. This is the screen millions of people are waking up to this morning as a massive Microsoft outage impacts computers all over the world.
00:11The outage leaves most flights grounded at this hour. You're looking live at Newark and JFK airports where we're seeing massive delays and cancellations scheduled for the day.
00:20We have live team coverage coming to you this morning. Good morning to you on this Friday, July 19th. I'm Chris Raggi.
00:25I'm Mary Calvi. Welcome to CBS 2 News this morning. And let's get straight to that breaking news this morning.
00:30CBS News' Natalie Dudridge joins us live from the newsroom with the latest on this ongoing situation. Natalie.
00:36Mary, Chris, I just got off the phone with a tech expert in the UK because that's one of the first people we could wake up this morning.
00:42Users across the world reporting issues with Microsoft 365 apps as well as its services.
00:48This is a significant outage. It is impacting banks, airlines, supermarkets, news organizations, including our own.
00:56Now, the cause and scale of this outage is still unclear, but it could impact you if you use Microsoft.
01:01So if you tried to log into Windows this morning, look at all of our computers.
01:05You might have seen this blue screen with the word recovery. This is from here in our newsroom.
01:11People are telling us all over the city they are seeing this. It says it looks like Windows did not load correctly.
01:16Microsoft 365 on X, formerly Twitter, saying we are investigating an issue impacting users' ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services.
01:26It goes on to say users may be unable to use them. There is a Web site called Down Detector.
01:32What it does is it tracks user-reported Internet outages, and we can see growing outages in all kinds of services, including Visa, ADT security, Amazon, several airlines, as well as banks, TD Bank Online, for example.
01:47I can't log in to my app this morning. And again, we were speaking to a tech expert in the UK. Here's what they had to say.
01:55It would have been, I guess, like a case of dominoes where one falls and the other starts to collapse.
02:06So we've seen in the UK issues with banks, with the stock exchange here in London, likewise with airlines.
02:14I've spoken to someone based at Heathrow Airport who was due to fly out to Berlin, Germany today.
02:20They got as far as the runway when they learned that Berlin Airport was closed and were told their flight would be delayed by a couple of hours.
02:27But then while they were on the tarmac, we were told actually their flight would be completely cancelled and they'd not be taking off.
02:33And he says he was talking to somebody on a Zoom call. Those Zoom calls started to go down.
02:39I also want to point out Microsoft posting on X that the company is, quote, working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact in a more expedient fashion.
02:51Microsoft also saying minutes ago that their servers are still seeing continuous improvements.
02:56So before you head into work today, some advice from experts. Check in with your I.T. teams.
03:01You might want to bring your laptops into work. Everyone in I.T. working overtime this morning to get this rectified.
03:09Chris and Mary, sending it back to you.
03:11OK, Natalie, thank you. The FAA says this outage is impacting all flights from several major U.S. airlines.
03:17Let's head out to CBS News. Christina Phan joining us live from Newark Airport with the very latest on the situation there.
03:24And Christina, what are you seeing?
03:27Well, Mary and Chris, this is a disastrous day for air travel.
03:31Airlines seem to be dealing with different problems behind us.
03:34You see the line and this is just for Spirit Airlines.
03:38It extends from one end of the airport and extends really as far as the eye can see all the way down to the booking counter.
03:45Some of these passengers tell us they have been here waiting for three to four hours to try and talk with one of those booking agents.
03:53Now, these problems started Thursday evening when Frontier had to issue a ground stop due to a Microsoft outage.
04:00The airline canceled more than 150 flights, accounting for about 20 percent of cancellations nationwide.
04:07Overnight, Frontier posted that their issues seem to be resolved.
04:10Operations for them have resumed.
04:12But now this morning, several other major U.S. airlines are starting to report problems.
04:17Around 2.30 this morning, American, United, Delta and Allegiant all requested ground stops with the Federal Aviation Administration citing communication issues.
04:27It seems their problem stems from an outage impacting cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
04:32American Airlines just released this statement saying, quote,
04:35We're aware of a technical issue with CrowdStrike that is impacting multiple carriers.
04:40American is working with CrowdStrike to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.
04:48Now, back here live, passengers with Spirit Airlines say their flights haven't been canceled.
04:52Many of them have been delayed, and a lot of them are unable to access their mobile boarding passes, which is why they are now in line to try to get a physical copy.
05:02Now, again, Chris and Mary, a very fluid situation out here this morning.
05:05And passengers saying they're not getting too much communication from these airlines.
05:10Reporting live from Newark Airport, Christina Phan, CBS2 News.
05:14All right, Christina, thank you.
05:15It would be interesting to hear from some of those passengers throughout the morning, too.
05:17It looks like it's going to be a long morning, that's for sure.
05:20CBS2's Tony Sedigo joins us now live from the Upper West Side.
05:24And, Tony, you've been talking with commuters about issues that they've been having this morning.
05:30Yeah, Mary, Chris, good morning.
05:31Yeah, we've been trying to really get a sense of how this is affecting New Yorkers waking up on this Friday morning.
05:36And a lot of the folks we've talked to so far today, you know, this hasn't necessarily been a huge, huge issue with the folks that we've seen in terms of checking their e-mail, their ability to go to work.
05:47I can tell you from, you know, checking my Microsoft Outlook e-mail this morning, hasn't been an issue there.
05:54But remember, this is still early in the game as we basically understand the whole scope of the impact of this global, you know, software issue.
06:05From where we are right now at the subway station here on 72nd, we know this is not affecting trains that are going to be operating this morning.
06:14However, we are hearing that the MTA app might be affected.
06:18We don't know if it's related, but I want to read to you a tweet that was just put out by MTA, which says,
06:24some MTA customer information systems are typically are temporarily offline, I should say, due to worldwide technical outage.
06:31Train and bus service is unaffected.
06:34Please listen to announcements in your station, on your train or in your bus.
06:40So that is the latest we have right now.
06:42We know this is still a developing story.
06:44We'll, of course, learn more as, you know, banks and other businesses will be opening throughout the morning.
06:50Of course, when we learn anything new, we'll be sharing that with you as well.
06:54Chris and Mary, back to you.
06:55Okay, Tony, thank you.
06:56Be sure to stay with CBS2 New York as we continue to follow the very latest on this major outage.
07:01We'll be live on top of this story, obviously, throughout the morning and give you as many updates as we can as soon as we get that information.
07:07But a lot going on worldwide right now.
07:09It's going to be very interesting, Mary, to see what happens when our markets open up later this morning,
07:12if they're affected at all since the London Stock Exchange is currently affected, along with payment systems worldwide this morning.
07:18Yeah, so we are still awaiting word from Microsoft as to when all of this will be fixed.
07:24But no word yet in regard to that.
07:265.07 right now.
07:28One thing we can be really pleased about is our weather today.