DENVER — More than 1,000 flights were canceled or delayed at Denver International Airport after a widespread tech issue caused problems for companies worldwide.
As of 9:15 p.m. Friday, 1,030 flights had been delayed and 148 flights had been canceled at Colorado's biggest airport, according to FlightAware.com.
DIA says it typically handles anywhere from 1,700 to 2,000 flights a day.
A widespread Microsoft outage disrupted flights around the world.
Around 7:41 a.m., DIA said operations had "largely stabilized" and all ground stops had been lifted, but delays were still impacting travelers.
Escalating disruptions continued hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services, according to the Associated Press.
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said that the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack - and that a fix was on the way. The company said the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows.
"There was a bug that was put into production that should not have," said Chad MacDonald, the owner of Genius I.T. Solutions in Denver. "Generally, before bugs are sent out, the code is reviewed thoroughly before it's deployed. Unfortunately, it looks like this but got out there without being inspected first."
Early Friday morning, American Airlines was working with CrowdStrike to resolve issues impacting their flights. As of 3 a.m., the airline reported they were able to safely re-establish their operations, the airline said.
United Airlines also saw impacts from the computer outage. As of 3:20 a.m., the airline was resuming some flights but expected disruptions to continue throughout the day. United was offering a waiver to make it easier for customers to change their travel plans, either on united.com or through the United app.
Anyone traveling through the airport this morning should check with their airline on the status of their flight.