A global tech meltdown has triggered travel mayhem across Britain, with flights grounded, airport check-ins cancelled and trains axed. 

The mass Microsoft outage has sparked chaos around the globe, with TV channels knocked out and banks taken offline. 

The IT pandemonium has led to huge queues at airports across the UK, with holidaymakers at Gatwick reportedly unable to check in.

It comes as Britain braces for its busiest day for air travel since before the Covid pandemic, with millions of families preparing for their summer breaks. 

Meanwhile Britain’s biggest train company told passengers to expect delays due to ‘widespread IT issues’, while Ryanair warned of ‘potential disruption’. 

The Microsoft outage comes as:  

• Heathrow, Manchester, Luton, Bristol and Edinburgh airports are hit by delays 
• Passengers at Gatwick reported ‘bedlam’ and three-hour queues after the crash 
• Govia Thameslink Railway, the parent firm of Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern warned passengers of disruption 
• Vital NHS services, including GP booking system, have all gone down 

Huge queues in Gatwick have formed as the IT meltdown continues to cause travel mayhem

The IT shutdown has also led to trains being delayed across the UK (a train is pictured this morning)

Travellers on railway across the UK are being warned of potential disruption following the IT glitch. Pictured are passengers at London’s Victoria railway station 

Passengers buying tickets at Victoria train station, London, amid reports of widespread IT outages affecting airlines

Govia Thameslink Railway, the parent company of Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern, issued the alert across social media.

It read: ‘We are currently experiencing widespread IT issues across our entire network.

‘Our IT teams are actively investigating to determine the root cause of the problem.

‘We are unable to access driver diagrams at certain locations, leading to potential short-notice cancellations, particularly on the Thameslink and Great Northern networks.

‘Additionally, other key systems, including our real-time customer information platforms, are also affected.

‘We will provide additional updates when we can. In the meantime, please regularly check your journey before you travel.’

Gatwick Express also warned travellers they are ‘currently experiencing widespread IT issues’ across the entire network.

Meanwhile, South Western Railway confirmed there will be major disruption for their passengers too.

‘Due to IT issues across the South Western Railway network all ticket vending machines are currently non operational,’ a message read on X.

Customers at Gatwick have reported long queues inside the airport following the IT outage 

Pictured are people queuing at the Wizzair desk in Gatwick Airport amid the travel mayhem 

Trains across the UK are expected to face disruption following the Microsoft system fault 

‘Please purchase your ticket online, on the train or speak to a member of station staff.

‘We apologise for the inconvenience this causes.’

A photo posted on social media shows long queues at Luton Airport.

The image, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, is accompanied by a caption stating that a ‘system failure’ is causing ‘massive queues’.

Edinburgh Airport has also been hit by the IT outage, with officials warning jetsetters the meltdown is causing longer waiting times.

A spokesperson said: ‘An IT system outage means wait times are longer than usual at the airport. This outage is affecting many other businesses, including airports.

‘Work is ongoing to resolve this and our teams are on hand to assist where we can. Passengers are thanked for their patience.’

Ryanair has also seemingly been hit with the issue after it posted on its website urging passengers to arrive at airports three hours early blaming a ‘third party IT issue, which is outside Ryanair’s control and affect all airlines operating across the network’. 

Passengers at Gatwick Airport as a massive Microsoft outage caused chaos in the aviation sector 

There were similar scenes of mayhem in other airports, with passengers at Barajas Airport, in Spain also pictured stuck 

The technical glitch with Microsoft’s tech was reported on Friday morning 

The IT meltdown has affected shops globally, with customers unable to pay for their shopping (pictured is a store in Canberra, Australia)

Checkout terminals in stores are unable to process transactions due to the IT crash 

In a statement, the firm said: ‘Potential disruptions across the network (Fri 19 July) due to a global 3rd party system outage.

‘Affected passengers will be notified and any passengers travelling across the network on Fri 19 July should check their Ryanair app for the latest updates on their flight.

‘We advise passengers to arrive at the airport 3 hours in advance of their flight to avoid any disruptions.

‘We regret any inconvenience caused to passengers by this 3rd party IT issue, which is outside of Ryanair’s control and affects all airlines operating across the network.’

Manchester Airport has said the Microsoft meltdown is only affecting Swissport, which handles some ground work for a few airlines.

Holidaymakers are still being checked-in manually which means delays for those travelling on flights supplied by Swissport.

A Manchester Airport spokesman confirmed passengers don’t need to change their travel arrangements and ‘we don’t want people thinking they need to come to the airport earlier because that can cause overcrowding’.

And as the outage continues to cause travel chaos, air passengers in India are being given hand-written boarding passes, with budget airline IndiGo among those handing out the make-shift tickets. 

On the trains, National Rail Enquiries told passengers: ‘There are currently widespread IT issues across the entire network.

‘IT teams are actively investigating to determine the root cause of the problem.

‘As a result, some train operators are unable to access driver diagrams at certain locations, leading to potential short-notice train cancellations.

‘Additionally, other key systems, including real-time customer information platforms, are also affected.’

US cyber security company CrowdStrike has admitted to being responsible for the error, as they report on their website they are ‘working on it’.

Sky News viewers were left with a static message on their TVs apologising for the ‘disruption’ to the service at 6am when broadcasting was meant to begin.

Sky News has gone off air, as the TV channel appears to be hit with ongoing technical issues

UK Sky Sports Presenter Jacquie Beltrao posted on X: ‘We’re obviously not on air – we’re trying @SkyNews Breakfast’

Microsoft users around the world have taken to social media to express their confusion at their computers shutting down

It read: ‘We apologise for the interuption to this broadcast. We hope to restore the transmission of Sky News shortly.’

The issue is impacting companies globally with online reports that Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan, the US and the UK have all been effected.

While in the US emergency services lines are reportedly down in Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Ohio.

Microsoft has posted on its social media account that is was ‘investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services’.

Microsoft users around the world have taken to social media to express their frustration and confusion at their computers also shutting down.

Sky Sports Presenter Jacquie Beltrao has posted on X saying: ‘We’re obviously not on air – we’re trying @SkyNews Breakfast.’

This has also lead to travel chaos as passengers attempting to board flights have been unable to check in due to the technical issues.

American Airlines was forced to ground its flights this morning due to a communication issue, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s status page.

According to service status monitoring website Downdetector, users were reporting issues with the services of Visa, BT, major supermarket chains, banks, online gaming platforms and media outlets.

A number of cybersecurity experts are reporting that a faulty update from CrowdStrike could be the cause of the outage.

Toby Murray, associate professor in the School of Computing and Information Systems at The University of Melbourne, said: ‘CrowdStrike Falcon has been linked to this widespread outage. CrowdStrike is a global cybersecurity and threat intelligence company.

‘Falcon is what is known as an Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) platform, which monitors the computers that it is installed on to detect intrusions – hacks – and respond to them. That means that Falcon is a pretty privileged piece of software in that it is able to influence how the computers it is installed on behave.

‘For example, if it detects that a computer is infected with malware that is causing the computer to communicate with an attacker, then Falcon could conceivably block that communication from occurring. If Falcon is suffering a malfunction then it could be causing a widespread outage for two reasons – one: Falcon is widely deployed on many computers, and two: because of Falcon’s privileged nature.

‘Falcon is a bit like anti-virus software: it is regularly updated with information about the latest online threats – so it can better detect them. We have certainly seen anti-virus updates in the past causing problems e.g. here.

‘It is possible that today’s outage may have been caused by a buggy update to Falcon.’