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A widespread Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage this morning, disrupted digital operations across multiple industries worldwide and left millions of users temporarily unable to access key online services. In the United States, major airlines including Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, and Southwest Airlines were among those affected. Travelers reported difficulties checking in for flights and managing reservations.
According to outage-tracking platform Downdetector, the AWS disruption led to service interruptions on some of the most visited websites and apps globally, including Amazon, Chase, Snapchat, Reddit, Facebook, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and many others. Within the aviation sector, airline websites and mobile applications that rely on AWS cloud infrastructure experienced intermittent outages lasting several hours.
Both Delta and United passengers reported widespread digital access issues, including problems viewing itineraries, checking in, and dropping off luggage through automated systems. While airline operations continued, the breakdown in digital connectivity caused confusion and frustration among travelers who depend on mobile tools and online check-in services to streamline their journeys.
Amazon Web Services confirmed that the core issue behind the outage has been resolved. The system continues to process a backlog of delayed requests and will take some time to catch up. Most affected platforms, including airline websites, have since returned to mostly normal operation. The incident underscores the far-reaching dependence of modern digital infrastructure on a small number of major cloud service providers.
This latest disruption comes just over a year after another large-scale technology failure shook global systems. On July 19, 2024, a flawed content update from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company, caused more than 8.5 million systems to crash. This crippled businesses and government operations worldwide. Airlines were again among the hardest hit at that time. This led to tons of delayed and canceled flights as carriers scrambled to restore affected systems. Delta Air Lines ended up filing a $500 million lawsuit as a result of the outage.
While the AWS outage did not cause comparable operational chaos, it highlighted how dependent most businesses have become on cloud-based networks to deliver basic services to customers.
For passengers, the temporary loss of access to flight information and online check-in options created additional stress. Many resorted to in-person counters or phone assistance (leading to longer waits at airports across the country). Industry analysts noted that while airlines have invested heavily in digital transformation, few have developed robust contingency systems that can fully operate when cloud platforms experience downtime. The AWS disruption serves as another wake-up call for companies to diversify their digital dependencies and establish stronger backup frameworks for mission-critical systems.
As aviation increasingly integrates artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and data-driven customer services, maintaining system stability has become a top operational priority. Incidents like today’s outage are expected to fuel further discussions about infrastructure redundancy, cybersecurity preparedness, and disaster recovery planning across the global airline industry.
Anthony’s Take: While most airline systems are now back online, check with your carrier for specific needs and have a little patience today as things normalize.
(Image Credits: TanyaJoy via iStock and Downdetector.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
