“Negative impacts” at airports could continue after a massive global IT outage left airlines, banks and businesses in the dark.
A faulty software update has shut down computers across the country, with flights, supermarkets and transportation systems affected.
Airports across Australia are still operating, but it is understood flights – including those from Jetstar – have been cancelled amid the chaos.
Supermarkets are also understood to be still affected by the outage, with some Woolworths and Coles checkout points unavailable on Saturday morning.
Around 3 p.m. Friday, computers across the country began to go down, with workers reporting problems at several businesses.
The problem comes from a “blue screen error” which is a result of a Crowdstrike service outage, where servers and devices get stuck in “boot loops.”
A statement from Crowdstrike revealed that the issue was caused by “a bug found in a single content update for Windows hosts” and that a fix has been deployed.
The IT problem has affected many countries including New Zealand, Japan, India, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Many businesses have been affected including media organisations such as the global operations of News Corp, ABC, SBS, Channel 7, Channel 9 and Network 10.
But it also affected electronic point-of-sale services, airlines, banks, and supermarkets, throwing the entire nation into chaos.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said the company is “working on a technical update and root cause analysis” that will be shared.
“CrowdStrike continues to work closely with affected customers and partners to ensure all systems are restored,” Mr. Kurtz said in a statement to X on Saturday morning.
“As this incident is resolved, I pledge to provide you with full transparency about how it happened and the steps we are taking to prevent anything like this from happening again.”
Many businesses appear to be recovering from the outage that occurred Saturday morning, but there could be “spillover effects,” especially on airlines.
Flights
A Sydney Airport spokesman said there were likely to be “spillover impacts” to individual airlines as a result of Friday’s service disruption.
“Airport systems are online and operations are normal, however there are some knock-on effects for individual airlines,” an airport spokesperson said.
“Anyone traveling today should check with their airline regarding the status of their flight.”
Melbourne Airport also confirmed its flights were still operational, but it is understood United has cancelled its service to San Francisco.
Jetstar was the airline most affected by the outage, which will likely lead to the cancellation of flights on Saturday.
Jetstar is understood to be experiencing issues with baggage, with customers still able to check in their bags, but the process is taking longer than usual.
Jetstar’s communications system used to communicate with customers was reportedly affected by a power outage yesterday, leaving the company unable to contact customers.
Jetstar Australia confirmed in a statement that the company was beginning to stabilise, with flights expected to operate as scheduled on Saturday.
A statement on Jetstar Australia’s website read: “Please proceed to the airport as normal. A small number of flights may be affected for operational reasons. If your flight is affected, we will contact you directly using the contact details provided in your booking.”
Virgin Australia also reported stable operations on Saturday morning, although the incident led to some flight cancellations.
“We thank the guests affected by this incident for their patience and understanding and will work with them to ensure they reach their destination as quickly as possible,” the company spokesperson said.
Guests are encouraged to visit the Virgin Australia website before travelling, and it is understood that distressed guests who are away from home are being supported with accommodation arrangements.
Supermarkets
Supermarkets appear to be back in business after reports of point-of-sale systems being affected on Friday.
A Coles spokesperson confirmed that all major stores across Australia were open and operating on Saturday, although some disruptions may persist.
“Some records may be temporarily unavailable while we fully recover,” a company spokesperson said. “We are working to add additional team members to assist customers with their shopping, and we thank everyone for their patience.”
“Several Liquorland, Vintage Cellars and First Choice Liquor stores will also resume business. All of our remaining liquor stores will reopen once systems are restored.”
A Woolworths spokesperson also said some payments were still affected on Saturday.
“All stores are open and operating normally for cash and card payments. Saturdays are a busy shopping day and we have plenty of stock on hand,” a company spokesperson said.
“Some payment points are still affected by the global outage, so we thank customers in advance for their patience and for treating our team with respect.
“After some disruption to a small number of orders last night, our online system is operating normally, and our team is expected to pick and deliver thousands of orders over the weekend.”
The spokesperson also thanked the team members who worked through the night to ensure stores could open on Saturday morning.
Some people went to X on Friday to report that Coles’ self-service EFTPOS machines were not working.
Another X user said it was “chaos in Woolworths” when the outages started.
Images from supermarkets show self-checkout machines with the same blue screen affecting Windows computers across the country, as workers manually pay for purchases.
Banks
A Commonwealth Bank spokesperson confirmed that their services, including NetBank,
CommBank app, CommBiz, merchant payments and ATMs are still available.
Westpac Bank and National Australia Bank also confirmed there was no impact on customer-facing operations.
Emergency services
It is understood that emergency services are still operating and that calls to 000 are not affected.
It is also understood that the NSW Fire Service receives and responds to automated fire alarms.
It comes after Victoria Emergency Services announced yesterday that fire alarms were not automatically calling firefighters, urging people to dial 00 instead.
Transfer
A NSW State Service spokesperson confirmed some systems were still experiencing issues on Saturday morning.
“Our service centres and phone lines in NSW are now open following a global IT outage that affected transactions at our service centres and contact centres yesterday afternoon,” a company spokesperson said.
“Most services have been restored, however, some systems are still experiencing outages.
“Teams are prioritising the restoration of these remaining systems and Service NSW apologises to customers for any inconvenience.
“The majority of digital transactions are unaffected and people are encouraged to complete transactions via the Service NSW website where possible.”
There are no ongoing issues with Victoria’s transport systems, according to reports.
