SAN ANTONIO — The world woke up Friday to technological chaos as flights were grounded, media outlets knocked offline, and hospital and government operations disrupted due to an update issue by Austin-based cybersecurity company CrowdStrike that affected Microsoft Windows customers.
San Antonio wasn't spared, particularly at the airport. As with other major cities across the country – though not as severely as places like Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International, where 24% of Friday's flights have been cancelled – travelers at San Antonio International (SAT) confronted delays or outright cancellations amid a morning grounding of flights from major airlines.
According to FlightAware, 100 flights were delayed and 20 canceled as of 3:30 p.m., with Delta and American Airlines the major companies most affected. About hundreds of travelers have been impacted at SAT, resulting in long lines and crowded terminals. (For comparison, George Bush Intercontinental in Houston has experienced about six times as many delays and over 130 cancelled flights.)
Among those impacted: a mother trying to get her kids home before their dad is deployed ended up on the phone for three hours while waiting for a representative. Even though every airline at San Antonio International is up and running as of Friday afternoon, many people are expected to not fly anywhere until Monday.
"Doesn't look like she's going to hit her connecting flight, there's no other flights going into where she's flying into tonight, so we're hoping we can find her a flight in the next couple of days," said one woman who expected to hug her daughter goodbye at the terminal on Friday.
As the day went on, Delta and Spirit were able to shorten their lines as kiosks came back online. People flying United and Delta said they were offered to have their costs covered for changed or missed flights.
Many people across all airlines, however, will sleep in hotels this weekend until they can get a flight on Monday.
Who else in San Antonio and Texas is being impacted?
Major entities like USAA, VIA, Baptist Health System and the San Antonio Police Department say they haven't experienced side effects from the outages. But not everyone in the metro has been so lucky.
The Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector says its office was "unable to conduct motor vehicle transactions all day," the global outage, although property tax payments were still able to be conducted. The office pointed to local title companies that can take care of auto transactions for a fee if systems are operational again Saturday.
Statewide, driver license offices were also closed Friday morning due to "a technical issue" and couldn't provide an estimate on when fixes would be completed.
At University Health, officials said at 10:20 a.m. that IT personnel were working to get systems back up and running "as we continue to recover from last night's worldwide tech outage." And the Bexar County Sheriff's Office said Microsoft outages were affecting the agency from being able to run information on license and insurance, or to determine if a car is stolen.
Don't use that an excuse to speed: BCSO did also say "tickets are still being generated."
U.S. Customs and Border Protection put out a statement saying it was "working to mitigate impacts to our operations" and "minimize the impact to international trade and travel."
As for home owners waiting to get their trash picked up back in the Alamo City, Solid Waste Management crews are expected to be out as late as 7 p.m. Friday.