‘How does this happen?’: Flights delayed or canceled at Logan amid global tech outage - Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News (2024)

BOSTON (WHDH) - Many flights out of Boston Logan Airport were grounded due to the widespread, global technology outage.

An announcement at Logan at 6 a.m. told travelers “the software to obtain flight routes is down.” By 7 a.m., Massport said only airlines impact by the outage are affected.

“Only the affected airlines are in a ground stop, everyone else is flying fine,” a Massport representative said. “Massport itself is not affected by this outage, so besides the airlines that are affected, everything is ok.”

At Logan Airport in Boston, Delta employees told 7News their outage began at 3 a.m., lasted for two hours, and then was extended a further two hours at 5 a.m. Despite the technical difficulties, that airline’s computers appeared to be working, and staff were able to help people check in and move through security.

“I’m pretty sure the airlines are doing the best they can, so you just got to roll with it,” said Lorena Silva, whose flight was delayed. “We’ll get there. It’s an inconvenience to us, it’s a flight. I think there are bigger issues in other industries. It’s the reality when you have one big company managing all of this. Got to roll with it.”

“We didn’t get any notifications,” said traveler Natalie Coryea, whose flight out of Logan was impacted. “We’re relying on technology these days and it’s scary how everything can just shut down in an instant.”

7News heard one Delta employee tell would-be passengers: “If you can travel tomorrow, travel tomorrow.”

Flight information screens around the airport, though, remained frozen and did not reflect accurate, updated flight times and statuses. The software system used by these displays was reportedly frozen, but has since resumed normal operations.

United, American, and Spirit confirmed their groundings.

“A third party software outage is impacting computer systems worldwide, including at United,” the airline said in a statement. “While we work to restore those systems, we are holding all aircraft at their departure airports. Flights already airborne are continuing to their destinations.”

“Earlier this morning, a technical issue with a vendor impacted multiple carriers, including American,” that airline said on X, formerly Twitter. “As of 5:00 a.m. ET, we have been able to safely re-establish our operation. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”

Spirit also announced its flight issues in a statement on X.

“Due to the outage, we are currently unable to rebook guests whose travel plans have been disrupted,” the airline said. “We will assist these guests as soon as possible when our vendor restores service.”

Some airlines offered snacks to stranded travelers coping with cancellations and delays.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said her administration is closely monitoring the incident.

“Our team is working to assess and mitigate the impact on Massachusetts,” Healey said on X, formerly Twitter. “We’re in contact with public safety, health care, and transportation officials, but residents may experience delays while we resolve the outage.”

Nancy Milner, a passenger attempting to fly to Tampa from Logan, called the situation a “nightmare.”

“Well, it’s laughable, just the whole entire experience,” Milner said.

Thomas Smith was hoping to get out of town for his honeymoon, but was stuck waiting for flight updates in a Logan terminal.

“We’re going from here to Amsterdam and Amsterdam to Mallorca and now, we don’t know if we’re going to be getting out tomorrow, Sunday, Monday,” Smith said.

“Look, everyone’s doing the best they can, it’s just unfortunate,” he continued.

This is adeveloping story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest updates.

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