Staggering: more than 130 delayed, 16 cancelled flights in just one day at Budapest Airport

A global IT problem caused a collapse in the world’s air and train traffic yesterday. Based on the statistics of flightaware.com, Budapest Airport saw 133 delayed and 16 cancelled flights on Friday. The IT error will have consequences even in the coming days.

Huge crowds at Budapest Airport

According to Telex, 30,697 planes were delayed, and 3,477 had to be cancelled in the world on Friday due to an IT glitch.

Budapest Airport saw tumultuous scenes with thousands of people crammed and waiting for their flights to depart. Some comment writers said the airport’s crisis management was bad, while others were not so harsh.

Early Friday, it seemed the problem was at Microsoft. Later, it became apparent that an update from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company, malfunctioned and infested too many computers, freezing them.

The situation stabilised with a longer check-in time

In a Facebook post, Budapest Airport said they had stabilised the situation by the afternoon and passenger check-in is continuous, although it may take longer than usual. That is because they do it manually, so the check-in time of a passenger is three minutes longer than the online version.

Concerning the worldwide IT glitch Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign minister, said it was impacting Budapest’s international airport and serious delays could be expected. He said that the impacted companies included Wizz Air, Ryanair, Eurowings and Turkish Airlines, adding that “several companies” had decided to switch over to manual check-in, “which could be unusual both for staff and passengers.”

Read also:

• Flight delays and longer wait times, huge crowd at Budapest Airport due to IT outage – read more in THIS article
• Hungarian air traffic controllers assert delays are not solely their fault