Sky News and various international broadcasters experienced significant outages on Friday morning due to issues linked to Microsoft systems.
The news channel was off the air for nearly an hour, resuming just before 9 UK time. The broadcast was markedly different, with a simplified studio setup, missing chyrons, and presenters relying on printed scripts instead of the usual teleprompter.
Sky News anchor Anna Jones informed viewers that the channel was “operating at minimal capacity” and efforts were underway to enhance the broadcast quality.
A global tech outage was disrupting operations in multiple industries on Friday, with airlines halting flights, some broadcasters going off-air, and everything from banking to healthcare hit by system problems.
American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and Allegiant Air grounded flights citing communication problems.
The order came shortly after Microsoft announced it had resolved its cloud services outage that impacted several low-cost carriers, though it was not immediately clear whether those were related, Reuters report.
“A third party software outage is impacting computer systems worldwide, including at United. While we work to restore those systems, we are holding all aircraft at their departure airports,” United said in a statement. “Flights already airborne are continuing to their destinations.”
The travel industry was among the hardest hit, with airports around the world, including in Tokyo, Amsterdam, Berlin, and several Spanish airports, reporting problems with their systems and delays.
International airlines, including Ryanair, warned of problems with their booking systems and other disruptions.