Worldwide disruption How outage hit transport, healthcare, banking and more

The Crowd Strike outage caused havoc across a swath of industries spanning the global economy.

- Julia Kollewe, Kat Lay, Gwyn Topham

Airlines, railways, hospitals, television stations, sports clubs and financial systems were among the sectors hit by the technology glitches, prompting national governments to convene emergency meetings and stock markets to fall.

Travel

In the UK, Gatwick and Luton airports were among the hubs where airline check-in systems were hit, while the biggest commuter rail network, GTR, said its Thameslink and Southern trains had been disrupted due to communications systems failing. South Western Railway said all of its ticket vending machines had stopped working, and West Midlands Trains, Avanti West Coast, Great Western Railway and TransPennine Express were also affected. The US’s Federal Aviation Administration shut down operations. There were about 110,000 commercial flights scheduled worldwide yesterday. By 11am, nearly 1,400 of them had reportedly been canceled.

US airlines including Delta, United and American grounded fl ights because of communication problems, while airports descended into chaos and some tourists were hit by large charges in purchasing tickets for new flights. Some US rail transport was also hit .

Health

Patients had important hospital appointments cancelled at the last minute in countries including the UK, Germany and Israel. The Royal Surrey NHS trust declared a critical incident and canceled radiotherapy appointments scheduled for yesterday morning.