Microsoft outage: Flight services affected at Chennai airport

Flight services were affected at the Chennai airport on Friday owing to Microsoft outage.

Eighteen flights were cancelled and over eighty flights — to and from various destinations across the country — were delayed due to the global outage, affecting thousands of passengers. As most of the systems, from check-in to boarding, were disrupted at the airport, the passengers were manually issued boarding passes.

Officials of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said the issue began around 11.00 a.m., delaying the flights of airlines such as IndiGo, SpiceJet, Air India Express, and Akasa.

Over 80 flights, mostly domestic, were delayed by about 30-45 minutes owing to the issue, said officials.

“Akin to what other airports are doing, airline staff are manually issuing boarding passes, which are then manually checked at the boarding points...,” an official said.

Passengers took to the social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), tagging the AAI and the airlines to check the status of their flights and whether there may be any cancellation or delay. Ravi S. Chauhan, a passenger, posted: “@IndiGo6E I’m stuck due to the Microsoft outage. I need another flight out of Chennai. Help.”

The AAI officials, Chennai airport, had posted on X: “A global IT outage has caused a temporary disruption to select airline operations. We are actively collaborating with all relevant parties to reduce inconvenience to our passengers. Passengers are requested to stay in touch with the concerned airlines for updated flight information. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”