Flights grounded across the US during tech outage

Unconfirmed reports suggest the company issued a software update which has caused Windows devices to crash.

A spokeswoman for Los Angeles International Airport told the BBC that “some flights are taking off and landing”, indicating that the issue was primarily affecting airlines rather than airports.

Delta and United airlines have also been affected by the tech outage, as well as a number of smaller carriers.

Late on Thursday, US airline Frontier said a “major Microsoft technical outage” had affected its operations.

Commenting on that development, US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said his department was “monitoring technical issues” at Frontier that were “leading to cancellations and delays across their network.”

Flights have also been grounded in other countries around the world.

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.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport is one of the latest to report delays caused by the IT outage.

“The outage has an impact on flights flying from and to Schiphol,” a spokesperson said, adding that it was not yet clear how many flights had been affected.