Microsoft IT Outage Live: CrowdStrike problem recovery tool released, dozens more flights cancelled across UK

This afternoon, the number of cancellations on easyJet flights to and from Gatwick doubled from 24 to 48. The new cancellations include two to Amsterdam, and flights to Geneva, Toulouse, Marseille and Naples.

Previously announced: The suspension of flights to and from Parma, Faro and Pisa.

Aer Lingus has cancelled two return flights between Heathrow and Dublin.

If a flight is canceled, airlines must offer passengers an alternative flight as quickly as possible, even on a rival airline if necessary, and they must also book a hotel room and provide meals if necessary.

However, many passengers Independent Airlines are only allowing use on their own flights.

Europe’s largest travel company, TUI, is cancelling more peak season package holidays as it struggles to recover from the Crowdstrike disruption.

The airline’s crew rostering system was affected by an IT glitch on Friday. TUI grounded 64 Holiday Airlines flights to and from the UK on Friday, with further delays and cancellations occurring on Saturday and Sunday.

The company has taken the highly unusual step of cancelling entire package tours in an effort to reduce the scale of the problem, which has been particularly severe at Manchester Airport.

Simon Calder, Travel Correspondent Report:

Microsoft released a recovery tool to help repair Windows machines affected by the flaw, after revealing that 8.5 million devices were affected.

The tool is designed to enable quick recovery of affected machines via a bootable USB drive.

On Friday, July 19, it was reported that cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike released a flawed software update for Microsoft’s Windows operating system, causing computers to crash and suffer “blue screen” errors, leaving users unable to reboot them.

Companies run their computer systems through Microsoft, which has led to flights being canceled, television stations going offline, and some banks becoming insolvent.

Dr David Wrigley, deputy chair of the BMA’s General Practice Committee for England, said: “Friday was the toughest day for GPs across England in recent memory.

“This weekend GPs have been working flat out to deal with the impact of Friday’s devastating service outage.

“The temporary outage of the patient record system is causing significant delays. Even if we can guarantee it will be fully restored on Monday, GP practices will still need time to make up for work lost over the weekend. NHSE must be clear to patients that normal services will not resume immediately.”

Cybersecurity experts said the outage was “unprecedented” in scale, affecting many of the world’s largest companies.

At first, the cause of the problem was a mystery: Windows computers seemed to suddenly stop working, displaying a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).

Air passengers are enduring a third day of chaos as dozens more holiday flights are cancelled.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled on Friday after an IT glitch caused cascading delays over the weekend, with bad weather across Europe and air traffic control delays exacerbating the problem.

EasyJet has so far cancelled 24 flights at London Gatwick, including departures for holiday trips to Faro, Naples and Palma de Mallorca.

Britain’s largest low-cost airline also suspended its Manchester-Bordeaux route, while Eurowings flights from Manchester to Dusseldorf and Hamburg were also cancelled.

Passengers at London Heathrow Airport have also been hit hard, with British Airways cancelling 12 flights between the UK and mainland Europe, as well as flights to and from London City and Faro.

Aer Lingus has suspended flights between Shannon in the west of Ireland and Heathrow Airport, while Eurowings has cancelled flights from Cologne.

Ryanair cancelled one round-trip flight from its main hub at London Stansted to Milan Bergamo airport.

Until this week, CrowdStrike was known for finding the sources of problems, not causing them. The Austin, Texas-based company, with offices around the world, was best known for investigating major hacks, including the Sony Pictures hack and the Democratic National Committee intrusion that was blamed on Russian spies.

The company has built a huge business on this and other work. Its market capitalization was $80 billion (£62 billion) at the close of Nasdaq trading on Thursday, but its shares have since fallen 20 percent. The company reported revenue of $3 billion last year.

CrowdStrike was founded in 2011 by a team that included CEO George Kurtz, who has led the company through its recovery, and quickly attracted investor interest. The following year, the company launched with a $26 million investment round and has raised more since then.

our Technology Editor Andrew Griffin Report:

NHS England has warned that a global IT outage will cause “ongoing disruption” to GP services into next week.

General practices across England reported being unable to make appointments or access patient records because the EMIS booking and patient record system was down on Friday.

NHS England said on Saturday afternoon that the system was “coming back online in most areas” but was “still slightly slower than usual”.

An NHS spokesman said: “Disruption may continue in some areas into next week, particularly for GP services, as practices work to re-book appointments as they recover from the loss of their IT systems on Friday.”

“Monday’s advice remains that patients should attend appointments as normal unless instructed otherwise.”

Dr Fari Ahmad said the IT glitch had meant “everything was down” at her clinic and that the disruption would cause “more issues later in the week”.

The GP told BBC Breakfast: “We had people who were supposed to come in to get their test results and we couldn’t see them. We said, ‘Sorry, we can’t help you’. We were just trying to deal with emergencies on the day that really couldn’t wait. We couldn’t carry out our normal business so it meant a lot of things were expedited for us.”