Worldwide problems

IT disruptions: All-clear for the most part in Austria

After the worldwide outages and technical problems with IT systems on Friday, the all-clear was largely given in Austria on Saturday. There were hardly any disruptions at airports. Operations in affected hospitals were also running almost without any problems.

At Vienna Airport, 100 of 780 scheduled flights were affected by the IT problems on Friday - with significant delays in some cases. Of these 100, eleven flights were canceled, Vienna Airport announced on Saturday. Due to the breakdown, the airlines Ryanair, Wizz Air, Eurowings, Turkish Airlines and Vueling had to carry out their check-in and boarding processes manually. However, everything was back to normal by Friday evening. On Saturday, the board members of Vienna Airport thanked the staff for their commitment and the passengers for their patience.

Graz Airport: delays also on Saturday
There were also delays at Graz Airport on Saturday. At Klagenfurt Airport, however, everything is running according to plan again. In Salzburg, the situation was also relaxed. "Today is the day of clearing up", commented press spokesman Alexander Klaus on the situation at Salzburg Airport. The last flight arrived at around 11.30 p.m. on Friday, which was without luggage.

At Vienna-Schwechat Airport, 100 of 780 scheduled flights were affected by the IT problems on Friday - with significant delays in some cases. Of these 100, eleven flights were canceled.

(Bild: zVg)

The following day, the main task was to process or dispatch the delayed loads. However, the airport itself was not directly affected by IT problems. This was only noticeable at destinations that had to deal with the computer failures. 

The global outage was not noticeable in Linz either. "We were not affected at all because there was no Eurowings flight," explained spokeswoman Birgit Springer. According to the press officer, the system in Upper Austria was running "completely normally".

Medical Association: "Outages show how vulnerable systems are"
In Austria's hospitals, everything was also largely running smoothly again on Friday afternoon, after hospitals in Vorarlberg, Tyrol and Burgenland were affected by the technical failures. The Austrian Medical Association (ÖÄK) emphasized on Saturday that the IT problems had shown the importance of data security. "These widespread outages have shown us how vulnerable our systems can be and how dependent we are on digital solutions," said Harald Schlögel, Executive Vice President of the ÖÄK.

ÖÄK Vice President Harald Schlögel: "Outages have shown us how vulnerable our systems can be and how dependent we are on digital solutions."

(Bild: Bernhard Noll / NÖÄK)

"Even if the problems in Austrian hospitals and surgeries have been limited, every postponed operation is one too many," said Schlögel, who appealed to the current and future federal government to apply the highest standards of data protection and data security to healthcare data. 

Global chaos triggered
The reason for the outages was a faulty update for Windows users that had been rolled out by the US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The global impact was enormous: airlines and airports around the world had IT problems, meaning that some take-offs and landings had to be canceled. Hospitals had to postpone operations, TV stations were unable to broadcast and checkout systems in supermarkets failed.