Edinburgh Airport hit by worldwide IT outage

Edinburgh Airport has been hit by an IT outage affecting airlines, media and banks around the world.

Passengers whose flights have been cancelled are being asked to leave the airport.

Edinburgh Airport said teams were managing waiting times “as best they can” and told passengers not to come to the airport without checking with their airline.

Cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike said the global IT issue had been caused by a “defect” in a content update.

Departure boards at Edinburgh Airport’s terminal building appeared to freeze before 07:00, showing out-of-date information about gate numbers and take off times.

A fire alarm also sounded, which is understood to be be connected to the ongoing issues.

The airport is no longer accepting incoming flights that are not already in the air.

It said work was ongoing to return airport operations to normal as soon as possible.

Passenger Ellie Jamieson, 22, was due to fly to Barcelona but told the BBC she had been waiting in a queue for more than an hour and a half.

She said some passengers had been boarded onto their flight and removed again and police had blocked off the escalator.

Ms Jamieson said: “Airport staff are not explaining anything or giving any reassurance, just constant announcements saying there are technical delays.”

Scanners for boarding passes are down due and are being checked manually by staff.

In a statement, the airport said: “Passengers should not travel to the airport without first checking the status of their flight with their airline.

“The wait at security is currently around one hour due to the outage and our teams are managing this.”

Glasgow and Aberdeen airports said they had been largely unaffected.

However, multiple other airports in the UK and across the world have reported delays, with many flights suspended.

More than 1,000 flights have been cancelled around the world so far, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

Ryanair said it was also experiencing problems and advised passengers to arrive at airports at three hours before their scheduled departure time.

Airports in Spain have also been badly hit, leaving many UK holidaymakers stranded.

Corrine Morrison Gilles is in Alicante, waiting to fly home to Edinburgh with her mother Annette, 79, and 10-year-old daughter Ava.

The family were left on a coach with other passengers for over an hour and a half before being taken to be manually checked in by airport staff in small groups.

Ms Morrison Gilles said: “All the flights are delayed and in red. There’s quite a bit of confusion and not a great deal of communication.

“They’re just trying to manage people as best they can at the moment. I feel for the older passengers here, I think they’re finding it more challenging.

ScotRail said it has not been affected, but other UK railway companies and some NHS services in have reported problems.

NHS Shetland said issues has affected its fire alarm system and a medical practice in NHS Grampian has asked patients to only contact them with urgent issues.

There have also been reports of businesses being unable to process payments, with Morrisons saying some stores were affected earlier but that the issue had now been resolved.

The Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow also said it was experiencing problems in processing ticket bookings, and Heart of Midlothian football club said its ticket office was affected.

Crowdstrike, which said a fix had been deployed, was founded in 2011 with the aim of safeguarding the world’s biggest companies from cyber vulnerabilities.

Its CEO, George Kurtz, said: “Crowdstrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows.

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack.”