Operations of Vietnam’s airports were not affected by a Microsoft's cloud services outage that affected thousands of flights globally on Friday, since they swiftly shifted to using their standby computer systems as soon as the incident started, said the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV).

A failed tech update from U.S. cybersecurity software company CrowdStrike crashed Microsoft Windows systems around the world on Friday, affecting the operation of airports, along with banks, hospitals, and media outlets, in different countries, according to international media. 

A defect was found ‘in a single content update for Windows hosts’ that affected Microsoft customers, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on social media platform X, Reuters reported.

However, this cloud service outage did not cause interruption to the operation of airports in Vietnam, Dinh Viet Thang, director of CAAV, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Friday afternoon. 

As soon as the incident happened and affected the computer system of Vietnam’s budget carrier Vietjet at Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Son Nhat International Airport, the airport authority immediately switched to using the computer network of Saigon Ground Services Joint Stock Company to carry out procedures for passengers smoothly, Thang stated.

As informed on Vietjet’s Facebook page, the global Microsoft Cloud system problem affected the reservations and online check-in provided by global airlines from about 11:30 am to 2:30 pm (Vietnam time).

“The incident hit computers that use Microsoft’s cloud services. However, the number of computers affected was not large,” he affirmed.

Vietnamese airports have standby computer systems for immediate use in such circumstances, so their operation was normal, with no flights disrupted, stated the CAAV leader.

The Vietnamese national flag carrier does not use such services, so it remained unaffected, he added.  

Due to the incident, major U.S. airlines, including American, Delta and United, were forced to ground flights, while delays and disruptions were also reported by other carriers and airports around the world, New York Post reported.

At least 2,645 flights were canceled and 9,175 were delayed in the U.S. alone, according to FlightAware data.

Globally, 4,249 flights were canceled and another 38,163 were delayed as of 5:00 pm Friday evening.  

CEO of CrowdStrike George Kurtz apologized for the disruptions in a post on X on Friday, noting the issue had been identified and isolated and a fix was underway, according to USA Today.

Services began to come back online on Friday evening but full recovery could take weeks after airports, healthcare services and businesses were hit by the ‘largest outage in history,’ The Guardian cited experts as saying.

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