Thousands stranded at NAIA as global IT outage continues

MANILA, Philippines — At least 25,500 travelers were stranded as 45 flights at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) were canceled yesterday following the global IT systems outage that has crippled flight operations of local and foreign airlines since Friday.

The Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) announced that flights operated by Cebu Pacific, CebGo, Air Asia and United Airlines were canceled because of the CrowdStrike system outage, which greatly affected check-in, booking and flight operations.

Of the total stranded passengers, 12,500 were Cebu Pacific passengers while 13,000 were Air Asia’s.

Cebu Pacific announced through Facebook the cancellation of its international 5J flights bound for and returning from Incheon, Denpasar, Bangkok, Taipei and Shanghai as well as 5J domestic flights for Cebu, Puerto Princesa, Tacloban, Cagayan de Oro, Laoag, Iloilo, Dipolog, Butuan, Caticlan, Davao and vice versa, as well as CebGo DG flights to Legazpi and Cebu.

AirAsia also announced that its Z2 flights for Cebu, Caticlan and Iloilo were canceled.

Also included in the announcement was the cancellation of United Airlines flight UA 190 to San Francisco.

On the other hand, Cebu Pacific flights from Manila, namely 5J 751 to Ho Chi Minh, 5J 310 to Taipei and 5J 759 to Jakarta which were advised cancelled in an earlier flight advisory, proceeded as scheduled last night. Their respective turn around flights, however, remained cancelled.

To reduce congestion at the terminals, passengers were advised by MIAA to check flight status with their respective airlines before proceeding to the airport.

Foreign airlines JejuAir, Jetstar Asia, Jestar Japan, Etihad Airlines, Scoot and Hong Kong Express were also affected by the CrowdStrike outage, according to MIAA.

Thousands of departing international and domestic passengers were left stranded at NAIA on Friday after the global IT outage grounded flights, derailed television broadcasts and impacted telecommunications worldwide.

As of yesterday, Cebu Pacific corporate communications director Carmina Romero announced that automated check-in, booking and other systems have been restored following their progress to restore the functionality of their systems.

Flight operations, however, will take some time to normalize, she said.

Meanwhile, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) reported that some 1,400 passengers were stranded at the Davao International Airport on Friday, but most have been rebooked and only 39 were still waiting for rebooking yesterday.

CAAP added that operations at the airport are slowly returning to normal but assistance, food and malasakit kits are still provided to stranded passengers in need.

Meanwhile, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT)-Cybersecurity Bureau and the National Computer Emergency Response team is vigilantly monitoring the ongoing global IT outage.

“This outage is affecting companies globally, including those in the Philippines, that use the said cybersecurity product,” DICT spokesman and assistant secretary for legal affairs Renato Paraiso said in a statement.

Paraiso assured the public that the DICT does not use the same cybersecurity service provider and that no DICT systems or assets have been affected.

“We are in continuous communication with relevant stakeholders to obtain detailed information and assess the full impact of this incident,” Paraiso said.

Globe Telecom issued a customer advisory yesterday that the Crowdstrike software issue has caused a global IT outage affecting Microsoft Windows systems, resulting in service disruptions in some industries and key sectors nationwide.

“Globe’s core services, which include call, text and date connectivity, however, remain unaffected,” according to their corporate communications team.

“The issue was isolated to a few Windows-based workstations that our employees use for work for the most part, and some servers that do not materially affect our core services,” Anton Bonifacio, Globe chief information security officer, said in a statement. — Jose Rodel Clapano