1000s of Flights Grounded: Is Your Trip Ruined by a CLOUD CRASH?

Microsoft (MSFT.O) announced on Thursday that it is investigating problems with its cloud services in the Central U.S. region, which have resulted in the grounding and cancellation of several flights. Low-cost airlines, including Frontier Airlines (a subsidiary of Frontier Group Holdings, ULCC.O), Allegiant, and SunCountry (SNCY.O), reported disruptions impacting their operations.

Frontier attributed the issues to a “major Microsoft technical outage,” while SunCountry mentioned that a third-party vendor had affected its booking and check-in systems without specifying the company’s name.

 

In a statement to CNN, Nevada-based Allegiant announced that its website is currently down due to an issue with Microsoft Azure. Allegiant did not promptly respond to Reuters’ request for comment. According to data from FlightAware, Frontier cancelled 147 flights and delayed 212 on Thursday. Allegiant experienced delays with 45% of its flights, while Sun Country had delays affecting 23% of its flights. The airlines did not provide specific numbers on the total flights impacted.

 

Microsoft reported that the outage began around 6 pm ET on Thursday, affecting a subset of its customers using multiple Azure services in the Central US region. Azure is a cloud computing platform that offers services for building, deploying, and managing applications. Additionally, Microsoft stated that it is investigating a separate issue impacting various Microsoft 365 apps and services.