Time: 2024-07-19
A technical system outage on Thursday , July 18 , affected several airlines ' operations , causing flight delays and cancellations at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and across the country . Frontier Airlines and Sun Country Airlines were among the carriers affected by the outage . As of 6 p.m. Arizona time on Thursday , 13 flights at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport were canceled , and 289 were delayed , according to FlightAware . The outage was caused by a major Microsoft issue affecting booking , check - in , boarding pass access , and some flights . Frontier Airlines issued a Ground stop for its flights due to the outage and is working with external vendors to restore normal operations.
The Microsoft outage primarily impacted Frontier Airlines , with FlightAware reporting seven canceled and 14 delayed Frontier flights at Sky Harbor . Sun Country Airlines and Allegiant Air also experienced difficulties , with their websites not working due to the Azure outage . Sun Country and Allegiant each had one flight delay out of Sky Harbor . The outage affected customers ' ability to book new flights and check - in for upcoming flights , impacting the airlines ' ability to operate normally . Southwest Airlines had the most delayed flights out of Sky Harbor on Thursday , with 143 , although it was unclear if they were directly affected by the outage.
The Federal Aviation Administration imposed a ground stop on Frontier Airlines , halting departures across the United States . The airline canceled 131 flights and delayed 223 others on Thursday , accounting for nearly 30 % of its total flights . Frontier Airlines requested the ground stop , which was lifted by the F later that night . Other airlines such as United , Southwest , and American Airlines were not affected by the Microsoft outage . Passengers whose flights were disrupted were advised to contact their respective airlines and check for flight status updates before heading to the airport.
Frontier Airlines offered refunds to passengers inconvenienced by the outage and communicated with customers through its website . Microsoft acknowledged the issue on its Azure cloud software status report site , stating that services in the Central US region experienced disruptions . The company identified the cause of the problem and is working on a resolution . While some airlines faced challenges due to the outage , others remained unaffected and continued their operations as usual . The situation highlighted the importance of technological infrastructure in the aviation industry and the need for prompt responses to technical issues to minimize disruptions in air travel.
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