Airline operations at Pune Airport, which were disrupted by a global IT outage on Friday, have returned to normalcy. The outage, caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, led to significant business and travel disruptions.
Pune Airport authorities have confirmed that airlines, the Airports Authority of India (AAI), and the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) are assisting passengers. Airlines are regularly updating passengers on cancellations and delays, and extra staff have been deployed. The airport is providing additional seating facilities and has advised F&B concessionaires to stock extra food to ensure passenger comfort.
The backlog from Friday’s disruptions has been gradually cleared.
The IT outage, one of the largest ever, was triggered by a CrowdStrike update that caused issues with Microsoft's Windows systems globally. This impacted various sectors, including financial services, airlines, hospitals, and television channels.
Airports nationwide experienced chaos as online booking, reservation, and boarding systems reverted to manual mode, resulting in longer processing times and consequently, hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled.
Microsoft stated on Saturday that the CrowdStrike update affected 8.5 million Windows systems, less than 1 percent of all Windows devices. However, the impact was significant due to CrowdStrike's extensive use by enterprises running many critical services.
