Global tech outage causing major flight delays at Miami, Fort Lauderdale airports

A massive worldwide Microsoft system outage was causing havoc Friday morning at South Florida’s airports.

At Miami International Airport, the outage was “affecting all airlines [and] is currently delaying departures and arrivals… Passengers are urged to contact their airline to confirm their flight status before coming to MIA this morning so they can make other travel arrangements if necessary,” the airport said on X.

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport is having a similar issue and stated, “An early morning system-wide technology issue is impacting some airline and passenger processing operations at U.S. airports, including #FLL. Flight delays are expected, so travelers should check with their airline for updated flight status before coming to #FLL.”

American Airlines, the major carrier out of MIA, said on X that “As of 5:00 a.m. ET, we have been able to safely re-establish our operation.”

But that didn’t assuage travelers, who were posting their anguish on American’s social media site on X.

“can you make an announcement to the charlotte airport ??? people are wondering what’s happening all screens are blue,” posted the Zulu at 6:30 a.m.

“People in the airports SPEAK UP! Is this actually fixed?” posted JustLorenzo on X at 6:30 a.m.

The global outage also affected some federal and local governments.

The city of Miami posted on X at 8:23 a.m. that the tech outage was affecting its online customer services.

Miami, Miami-Dade police not affected

The Miami Police Department said, however, it was not impacted by the outage. Calls to 911, radio transmissions and computers were working fine, a department spokesman said.

Miami-Dade Police also said it has not been experiencing any issues from the global tech outage.

The widespread outage is linked to the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike.

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.,” said CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz on X.

At least one hospital affected

Cleveland Clinic in Weston was seeing some impact, but it wasn’t affecting patients.

“Due to the global IT outage, some technology used by Cleveland Clinic is currently impacted,” the hospital said in an emailed statement. “Patient care is not affected, and we are continuing to provide care at all locations.”

Memorial Healthcare System, one of the public hospital systems in Broward County, said Friday it has not experienced any outages and is “serving the community as usual.”

HCA Florida Healthcare, which manages Mercy, Kendall, Aventura hospitals in Miami-Dade and University, Northwest, Woodmont Westside Hospitals in Broward, also said it had not been affected by the outage.

“Our health system has not been directly impacted by CrowdStrike’s technology issue and we are working with our vendors to understand any issues they may be facing,” HCA Florida Healthcare said in a statement. “We do not expect the incident to impact our ability to provide care to our patients.

Steward Health Care System, which operates 31 hospitals across the country, including five in South Florida, also said none of its hospitals have been impacted by the outage.

Steward Health, which is in the midst of Chapter 11 bankruptcy and is under federal investigation for possible corruption, owns Palmetto General in Hialeah, North Shore Medical Center in North Miami-Dade, Coral Gables Hospital and Florida Medical Center in Lauderdale Lakes. The company’s other Florida hospitals are Melbourne Regional Medical Center, Rockledge Regional Medical Center and Sebastian River Medical.

Miami Herald Staff Writers Michelle Marchante and Charles Rabin contributed to this report.