Planes grounded as mass worldwide IT outage hits airlines, media and banks

July 19: A raft of Australian institutions - including major banks, media outlets and an airline - have reported being hit by a mass IT outage.

Jetstar has been crippled at Sydney airport, supermarkets are experiencing checkout chaos, and broadcast networks have been left scrambling on air as autocue and graphics failed.

Hours before Australia was severely affected, a handful of airlines in the US also reported having to ground planes due to IT issues.

The cause of the outage is unclear, but many of those affected have linked it to Microsoft PC operating systems.

Australian outage website Downdetector shows issues being reported by the National Australia Bank, telecom firm Telstra, Google and more.

An official Microsoft 365 service update posted to X earlier in the day said "We're investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services".

US airlines issue global ground stop on all flights

United, Delta and American Airlines - which are all based in the United States - have issued a "global ground stop" on all of their flights.

Flights that are currently airborne will continue, but no further flights will take off for now.

Airports in Japan and India also affected

Japan's Narita airport, around 60km (37miles) from Tokyo, says airlines JetStar, Jeju Air, Qantas, HK Express and Spring Japan are having issues with their systems.

And in India, Delhi airport says some services have been temporarily impacted.

Outage hits airport and parliament in New Zealand

In New Zealand, Christchurch International Airport says it is experiencing IT issues across a number of systems which may affect flight arrivals and departures.

And a spokesperson for New Zealand's parliament says their computer network is having problems.

Poland's largest container terminal 'struggling'

Poland’s largest container terminal, the Baltic Hub in the northern city of Gdansk, is the latest major infrastructure to be affected.

"Pleased be advised that we are struggling at the Baltic Hub with a global Microsoft operating system outage that is hampering terminal operations," the company says.

Baltic Hub has asked companies not to send containers to the port. The hub began operating in 2007 and has the capacity to handle up to 2.9 million containers annually.

Delhi Airport goes manual

By Samira Hussain, Reporting from Indira Gandhi Airport in Delhi

In Delhi, there was very little information available when I arrived at the airport. No electronic terminals were available for check-in and the lines to speak with an agent were long and unwieldy.

We were given blank boarding cards and asked to fill in the information manually. Baggage tags were printed blank and were also entered manually.

After going through security, there is one person at Terminal 3 who is in charge of updating a whiteboard by hand with gate information.

I’m at the gate where the flight is meant to leave from but there are no agents nor is there a plane.

At the gate across from the one I’m at, there is a captain and crew waiting for the grounds crew to start the boarding process.

Because everything here is being done manually, things are slow. But this airport remains open.

Paris Olympics IT systems affected

The organising committee for the Paris Olympics says its IT operations have also been impacted.

But - with just a week to go before the Games begin - the committee says it has contingency plans, according to Reuters news agency.

Two hospitals in Germany cancel non-emergency operations

Two hospitals in the northern German cities of Luebeck and Kiel have cancelled elective operations scheduled for Friday.

Patient care and emergency services will go ahead as normal, the University Clinic of Schleswig-Holstein adds.

More airlines and airports affected across Europe

Queues at Barajas airport, Madrid. Photo: REUTERS

Both German airline Lufthansa and SAS Airline, based in Scandinavia, are the latest airlines to report disruption.

Lufthansa says that, at the moment, the company's booking retrieval may be limited, but a solution is being worked on.

And SAS says its services are fully operational, but "technical issues" are impacting its booking engine.

Prague Airport has also been affected by the check-in system outage and says some departures from the Czech capital are delayed.

German airline Eurowings is also reporting that its online check-in is currently not working.

And in Northern Ireland, Belfast International airport says the outage is impacting the airport, but flights remain operational.

Switzerland's largest airport in Zurich also says planes are not allowed to land.