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Holidaymakers have been left stranded at Corfu Airport for more than 50 hours amid global chaos caused by an IT glitch that affected millions of computers across the world.
Computer systems around the world crashed on Friday afternoon after a update by cyber security company Crowdstrike failed, affecting Microsoft users.
Computer screens at airlines, supermarkets, banks, media outlets, petrol stations and other major businesses and retailers around the world were faced with the blue screen of death.
On the Greek island of Corfu, passengers desperate to get back to their homes told Manchester Evening News that they were fed up of waiting for technicians to resolve the ongoing problems.
‘It has been 50 hours now and we still don’t know what’s happening’, one flyer said.
On the Greek island of Corfu, passengers desperate to get back to their homes told Manchester Evening News that they were fed up of waiting for technicians to resolve the ongoing problems
Holidaymakers have been left stranded at Corfu Airport for more than 50 hours amid global chaos caused by a global IT glitch (File image of Corfu Airport)
Computer systems around the world crashed on Friday afternoon after a update by cyber security company Crowdstrike failed, affecting Microsoft users
The holidaymaker said they flew on TUI, which has faced severe delays and cancellations this weekend caused by the global IT outage.
‘Everyone is just miserable and angry. It’s been a nightmare. People have work tomorrow. My mum works for the NHS and was like ‘what am I going to do?’. People will be losing a day in work and have commitments, will they pay our wages?, they added.
The latest statement on the airline’s social media platforms reads: ‘Following the global IT issue impacting businesses around the world, we would like to apologise to everyone affected.
‘Whilst the original IT issue was outside of our control, the impact to our systems has meant that our flight programming continues to suffer delays and cancellations.
‘We are very sorry to all those customers impacted as we understand how disappointing this is. We ask that all TUI customers due to travel this weekend regularly check the Travel Information page of the TUI website for the latest updates. Your TUI Team.’
It comes as dozens more flights have been cancelled as the global IT outage entered its third day on Sunday.
After hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled by the global IT failure on Friday, further delays have continued throughout the weekend, with bad weather in parts of Europe making the problems worse.
EasyJet cancelled 48 flights at London Gatwick on Sunday, including to popular holiday destinations such as Naples, Majorca, Amsterdam and Marseille.
Footage posted on social media shows travel chaos at Gatwick with hundreds left stranded at the airport as they wait for information about their flights, and some being booked into hotels as the delays stretched overnight.
Passengers at London Heathrow have also been hard hit, with British Airways cancelling a dozen flights to and from UK and Continental European destinations.
Footage shows travel chaos at Gatwick with hundreds left stranded at the airport as they wait for information about their flights
Travel chaos at Gatwick today as hundreds wait for more information about their flights
One woman documented her travel frustrations on TikTok as she claimed of being stranded at Gatwick airport
The woman said she became stranded at Gatwick as there were no hotels available in London
Another person reported of already being in ‘holiday mode’ despite their flight being cancelled
The global Microsoft outage has hit vital NHS services, with GP surgeries reporting problems
It comes as the British Medical Association (BMA) today warned that GPs need time to recover from the global IT outage after a bug caused a ‘considerable backlog’.
The technical fault – created by an update pushed out to customers of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike – caused Windows software to shut down, prompting travel hell at airports and train stations as well as affecting GP and hospital appointments.
The outage hit transport systems hard, with hundreds of flights cancelled and delayed into the weekend, while rail services in Britain were also affected on Friday.
On Sunday the effects continued to be felt, with easyJet forced to cancel dozens 48 services at Gatwick airport.
This included flights to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Naples in Italy, Majorca in Spain and Marseille in France.
There were angry scenes at the airport to the south of London, with photos and video showing masses of passengers sitting in the terminal as after their flights were cancelled or delayed.
The cancellations meant some travellers were unable to depart until tomorrow, with airlines being forced to book them into hotels overnight before getting a rearranged flight the next day.
The airline has been forced to cancel flights at other airports across Britain as well, including Luton and Manchester.
MailOnline has contacted easyJet for comment.
Other airlines have also faced issues, with British Airways cancelling a dozen flights between the UK and continental Europe.
Wizz Air also cancelled a number of flights at Luton Airport, while Aer Lingus axed flights between Dublin and Heathrow today.
Consumer laws state that airlines with cancelled flights must book affected passengers onto a new service, as well as get them a hotel and meals if the wait for the new flight is long enough.
Meanwhile, the health service is still feeling the fallout from the IT outage.
The trade union for doctors said GPs would ‘need time to catch up from lost work over the weekend’, adding that NHS England should ‘make clear to patients’ this was the case.
The BMA said its GP committee would continue to talk to NHS England and patient record system supplier EMIS to secure a ‘better system of IT backup’ to ensure the ‘disaster’ was not repeated.
Dr David Wrigley, deputy chairman of GPC England, the representative body for GPs at the BMA, said: ‘Friday was one the toughest single days in recent times for GPs across England. Without a clinical IT system many were forced to return to pen and paper to be able to serve their patients.
Passengers queue at Gatwick Airport amid the first day of the global IT outage on Friday
Passengers at Edinburgh Airport, as widespread IT outages have affected airlines this weekend
The technical fault – created by an update pushed out to customers of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike – caused Windows software to shut down (File image)
‘While GPs and their teams worked hard to look after as many as they could, without access to the information they needed much of the work has had to be shifted into the coming week.’
He added: ‘GPs have been pulling out all the stops this weekend to deal with the effects of Friday’s catastrophic loss of service and, as their IT systems come back online, we thank them and their staff for their hard work under exceptionally trying circumstances.
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‘We also thank patients for bearing with general practice in this unprecedented situation.
‘The temporary loss of the EMIS patient record system has meant a considerable backlog.
‘Even if we could guarantee it could be fully fixed on Monday, GPs would still need time to catch up from lost work over the weekend, and NHSE (National Health Service England) should make clear to patients that normal service cannot be resumed immediately.’
A flawed update rolled out by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike knocked many services offline around the world on Friday, causing flight and train cancellations and crippling some healthcare systems.
A fix was deployed for a bug in the update, which affected equipment running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as CrowdStrike’s chief executive George Kurtz said it would take ‘some time’ for systems to be fully restored.
Across England, GP surgeries reported being unable to book appointments or access patient records on Friday as their EMIS system went down.
Railway services still faced disruption in the UK on Saturday. Pictured: A South Western Railway ticket machine put out of action due to the outage
It comes as a cancer patient said surgery to remove a mass from her brain was cancelled this week due to the worldwide IT outage.
Chantelle Mooney, 41, was due to have a craniotomy on Friday but said the surgery was cancelled following the IT glitch.
Ms Mooney was diagnosed with stage 4B terminal cervical cancer in February 2022, which spread to her lungs.
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She was then told three weeks ago that a four centimetre mass had also been found in her brain – after she started experiencing weakness down one side.
After initially being pushed back on Thursday, Ms Mooney arrived at Royal Preston Hospital, Lancashire, on Friday morning, expecting to go into surgery at 10am.
But while she was watching TV in the waiting area before being called into theatre, she spotted the news that Microsoft technology was facing outages across the world.
Ms Mooney said later her surgeon arrived to explain they relied on Microsoft technology for scans, emergency medication, accessing medical records and more.
After spending the morning waiting to see if the issue would be solved, Ms Mooney was told at 1.30pm that the surgery would not be going ahead and was going to be pushed back to next Friday.