A significant Microsoft outage brought low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines and some competitors to a standstill for hours after a regulator halted departures. The ground stop was lifted late Thursday night.
Frontier stated on its website, “Our systems are impacted by a Microsoft outage, which also affects other companies. We appreciate your patience.” The company offered refunds to inconvenienced passengers.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported that Frontier requested a pause on its departures across the United States. Shortly after 10 pm ET, the FAA lifted the ground stop on Frontier.
According to data tracker FlightAware, the airline canceled 131 flights on Thursday and delayed 223 others, affecting nearly 30% of its overall flights.
Other airlines, such as Allegiant and SunCountry, also experienced difficulties.
SunCountry stated on its website, “Due to a global outage at a third-party vendor, our booking, check-in, and trip-managing capabilities are temporarily unavailable.”
Allegiant added, “The Allegiant website is currently unavailable due to the Microsoft Azure issue.”
Microsoft, on its Azure cloud software status report site, reported that around 6 pm ET, the service went down for some customers in the Central US region. This included “failures with service management operations and connectivity or availability of services.” The company said it had determined the cause and was working to resolve the issue. A company spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other airlines such as United, Southwest, and American Airlines stated they were not impacted by the outage.
