Thiruvananthapuram:A major IT outage triggered by an update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike disrupted flight operations at various airports in Kerala. Three late evening Indigo flights from Thiruvananthapuram have been cancelled: Bangalore (8.55 p.m.), Hyderabad (10:10 p.m.), and Chennai (10:45 p.m.).

Though flights scheduled for morning and afternoon were not cancelled, the shift to manual mode for preparing boarding passes, and the attendant confusions and errors, have caused serious delays. As a consequence, flights have been delayed.

"Since the airport staff, too, were taken by surprise, there was panic at the airport," a member of the ground handling staff said. Long queues were seen in front of counters. "Some of the passengers were justifiably angry but the outage happened just out of the blue," the official said.

Making matters worse, IndiGo has ruled out refund. This is what the company posted on X: "Flights are cancelled due to the cascading effect of the worldwide travel system outage, beyond our control. The option to rebook/claim a refund is temporarily unavailable. To check the cancelled flights, visit https://bit.ly/4d5dUcZ. We truly appreciate your patience & support."

Eleven services by different airlines were delayed at Cochin International Airport as the airlines had to resort to manual check-ins.  The flights were delayed by 30 minutes to 1 hour. Six flights have been cancelled. They are: 6E 695/HYD, IX 1132/1130 BLR, 6E 435/472 BLR, 6E 169/742/HYD, 6E 144/6922/BLR, 6E 6682/6681 HYD. 

As per reports from Thiruvananthapuram airport, spelling mistakes on hand-written boarding passes are causing most of the delays, and also passenger resentment. However, IndiGo officials said that there was nothing to worry even if there was a mistake as the handwritten pass would be cross-checked with the ticket information passengers have on their mobile and also their IDs.

IndiGo uses Microsoft 365 software for all its operations. And since it uses Microsoft Teams, part of the 365 family of products, for workspace chat and video conferencing, the outage has seriously affected internal communication between pilots and ground staff.

Air India Express said its website, reservation and airport check-in systems were also impacted. "Please plan your travel and keep sufficient time in hand for airport procedures. We regret the inconvenience and appreciate your patience and understanding," Air India Express said in a communication.

Kannur airport authorities said that there was no change in flight timing due to the issue and no flights were cancelled.