Luton Airport’s air and connecting rail services are returning to normal after being affected by a global IT system failure.

A global technology system issue in Microsoft computers lead to technical problems worldwide yesterday (19/07), with the fault linked to issues within an update released on Thursday to an anti-virus software produced by American cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.

Airports, rail networks, banks, healthcare providers, TV channels and Formula One teams were among several businesses affected, with the “blue screen of death” seen on many computers at start-up throughout the last few days.

Luton Airport confirmed issues in a first update at around 9:20am yesterday morning. They stated that, “We are aware of an ongoing global IT issue that is impacting check-in and boarding procedures for some airlines. We have additional staff on hand to support and operations are continuing with manual systems. Passengers are advised to check with their airlines for flight updates.”

In a follow-up update at 11am, the airport confirmed that it was open, and to advise passengers check accordingly with their airline.

Their most recent update, which was published just after 6pm yesterday evening, said some delays may be possible as a result of the disruption caused.

They said, “London Luton Airport remains fully operational, although some delays are possible as some airlines work to restore their systems impacted by today’s global IT outage.

“Passengers should continue to check with their airline for the latest flight information before travelling to the airport.”

Another firm hit by the issue was Thameslink, who run commuter services between Luton and London as well as a myriad of several other commuter train lines connecting multiple towns and cities in South East England around London.

They first reported technology issues at around 7:45am yesterday morning.

In their first social media statement on the issue, they said, “We are currently experiencing widespread IT issues across our entire network. Our IT teams are actively investigating to determine the root cause of the problem.

“We are unable to access driver diagrams at certain locations, leading to potential short-notice cancellations, particularly on the Thameslink and Great Northern networks.

“Additionally, other key systems, including our real-time customer information platforms, are also affected. We will provide additional updates when we can. In the meantime, please regularly check your journey before you travel.

“We’re sorry for the disruption to our services and customer information channels this morning.”

Thameslink have since been able to correct faults, publishing a follow-up social media statement around 11:35am yesterday morning that they had regained access to key systems and were beginning to run services again.

As of this morning (20/07), a majority of flights at Luton Airport and rail services serving the nearby Luton Airport Parkway rail station seem to have returned to running on time or within a few minutes.

The global IT outage was caused by faulty coding in an update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon cybersecurity device, which lead to many computers connected with it stuck in a reboot spiral.

Described by some technology experts as “the largest IT outage as history”, issues began when simultaneous issues were reported in Australia, Asia and the USA.

America’s three largest airlines Delta, American and United were among those to ground flights, with thousands of flights worldwide affected, while airports across the world also reported technical issues with processing passengers.

In the UK, airports were also affected, while hospitals and GP surgeries saw communication systems affected and the TV channel Sky News was briefly taken off air due to it’s own technical issues.

In a statement, CrowdStrike’s CEO George Kurtz apologised for the failures and said they would work with those affected to restore compromised systems.

He said, “I want to sincerely apologize directly to all of you for today’s outage. All of CrowdStrike understands the gravity and impact of the situation. We quickly identified the issue and deployed a fix, allowing us to focus diligently on restoring customer systems as our highest priority.

“The outage was caused by a defect found in a Falcon content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This was not a cyberattack.

“We are working closely with impacted customers and partners to ensure that all systems are restored, so you can deliver the services your customers rely on.

“CrowdStrike is operating normally, and this issue does not affect our Falcon platform systems. There is no impact to any protection if the Falcon sensor is installed. Falcon Complete and Falcon OverWatch services are not disrupted.”