Flights around the world face disruption - including Ryanair and American Airlines - due to the massive IT outage that has hit a range of companies globally.
The Irish budget airline Ryanair - which flies from Newcastle - said this morning its flights are being disrupted by the outage. The airline said in a statement: "We’re currently experiencing disruption across the network due to a global third party IT outage which is out of our control. We advise all passengers to arrive at the airport at least three hours before their scheduled departure time.”
Firms including banks, train companies, airports and airlines have all reported issues with IT this morning - it is thought at this stage to relate to cybersecurity software provided by the firm Cloudstrike. Ciaran Martin, former chief executive of the National Centre for Cyber Security told the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme that it was "not for sure" that a malicious cyber attack could be ruled out, but he said this was "most likely" not the case.
Mr Martin added his observations were "heavily caveated" and said: "There's a very well-known company called Cloudstrike that a lot of major companies use for network protection. Their falcon sensor update seems to have been misconfigured in such a way that it wrecks Windows."
In the USA airlines have grounded flights due to the outage. Newcastle International Airport's online departure board appears to be operational as normal, as of Friday morning.
On Friday morning, Edinburgh Airport said the IT outage was causing longer waiting times and it is understood to have affected that airport's departure board. .
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.”
London Stansted Airport said that some airline check-in services are being done manually as a result of the IT outage, but “flights are still operating as normal”. A spokesperson said: “Some retail payment machine services have been impacted, and some airline check-in services reverted to being done manually, but our main operational systems are unaffected and flights are still operating as normal."
