South Pacific/Oceania: Lingering air travel, rail, and business disruptions due to IT outage likely continue as of July 21 /update 1

As of July 21, businesses and organizations are recovering from a global IT outage affecting Microsoft cloud services. The outage disabled many business computing systems and affected various airlines, rail services, and retail businesses. A cybersecurity update reportedly triggered the interruptions. Microsoft has deployed a fix to the issue. The outage, which began July 19, prompted widespread travel and business disruptions across the South Pacific and Oceania regions.

Multiple airports across the region, including those in Australia and New Zealand, experienced delays and suspensions of online processing systems. Various airlines, such as Virgin Australia (VA) and Qantas (QF), were also impacted, leading to delays. The outage also affected other airlines globally, with multiple American carriers grounding flights. Related communication issues prompted major rail service delays in parts of Australia July 19.

Banking services such as app-based transactions and ATM functions, telecommunications, television broadcasting, postal, and retail services were also disrupted in various areas, in addition to workplace devices and websites, including media channels and government agencies.

Lingering disruptions to flights and rail transport are likely through at least July 22 as operators work through an extensive passenger backlog. Further flight delays or cancellations are possible. Residual disruptions to business systems are likely as organizations work to install critical updates to cloud and app-based services and restore normal service.