Microsoft outage: Airlines hit in India; other sectors unaffected

Bengaluru: The Indian aviation sector was severely disrupted on Friday by the widespread Microsoft outage, with airports in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru among the worst hit.

India’s largest carrier Indigo cancelled 270 flights, as per the information on its website at 8:30 pm, including 40 departures from Mumbai and 33 each from Delhi and Bengaluru. 

Others like SpiceJet, Akasa and Air India issued urgent advisories to passengers as their online check-in and boarding systems went dark. With digital processes in disarray, airlines were forced to resort to manual operations, causing widespread disruptions and delays across their networks.

Most other sectors, including banks and markets, remained unaffected. Only Maruti Suzuki said that it was briefly impacted.

Passengers thronged areas around the check-in gates and the arrival-departure kerbside at the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) in Bengaluru on Friday, trying to make sense of the cancellations and the delays. While some of the passengers said they were looking to board night flights, many were exploring options for overnight accommodation in the city. 

The day saw airline staff make hand-written check-in entries — a first for many of them — on boarding passes. Passengers stranded at the waiting lounge said there was no official word on alternative flights. “I had an evening IndiGo flight that got cancelled. I’m not sure if I should stay and see if things get better or start tomorrow,” Abhishek, a passenger scheduled to travel to Kolkata, told DH.

The Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL), which operates KIA, said in an initial response that the outage forced four carriers operating from the two terminals — IndiGo, Air India Express, SpiceJet and Akasa — to initiate manual check-ins.

“The airline is closely monitoring the situation and any further decisions regarding flight operations will be made based on updates from its cloud service provider. A dedicated team has been deployed to address these technical challenges and minimise disruptions,” Indigo said in a statement.

The company said that it had activated ‘war rooms’ at four metro airports to manage operations. 

Air India requested its passengers to check the status of their flight before heading to the airport while SpiceJet said that it had not faced even a single flight cancellation despite the outage.

Union Minister of Civil Aviation Ram Mohan Naidu said the civil aviation ministry in collaboration with AAI has "implemented manual backup systems to maintain operational continuity". Naidu said the outage led to "flight cancellations and long queues of people outside airports and at check-in counters across the country".

However, other sectors were not affected as much. Indian financial and payments systems remained largely unaffected, though about 10 banks and NBFCs faced minor disruptions which have either been resolved or are being fixed, as per PTI.

The Reserve Bank of India said it has made an assessment of the impact of this outage on its regulated entities. "Critical systems of most banks are not in the cloud; further, only a few banks are using the CrowdStrike tool. Our assessment shows that only 10 banks and NBFCs had minor disruptions which have either been resolved or are being resolved," RBI said in a statement.

Auto major Maruti Suzuki said it was partly affected and production and despatch operations halted briefly. The company, however, said it has been able to resume operations.