LIHU‘E — A tech outage disrupted services around the globe, leaving airline passengers stranded, surgeries canceled and government agencies working through the night to restore systems.
The outage stemmed from a dodgy software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. The update went to customers of Microsoft Windows on Thursday.
The disruption of services was felt on Kaua‘i at Lihu‘e Airport, as well as within local government agencies.
Delta Airlines passenger Susana Luna’s flight was one of the disrupted flights at Lihu‘e Airport on Thursday night.
“Its stressful, but its OK. It’s nobody’s fault,” Luna said. “We can’t do anything, everything is out, thankfully we have a friend here, thank God, and she’s helping us out.”
Luna was scheduled to fly out of Lihu‘e Airport at 9:50 p.m. on Thursday. She was headed back to San Diego when her flight was canceled. She reported having issues contacting Delta Airlines and after 12 hours she still had not heard any update regarding her flight.
She eventually rebooked her flight with Alaska Airlines. She is now departing on Saturday night.
Delta Airlines issued a statement via social platform ‘X’ formerly known as Twitter: “Delta has resumed some flights after a vendor technology issue impacting airlines and businesses globally. We’ve issued a travel waiver and customers can monitor and manage their itineraries on http://dl.aero/6014lrDLu or the Fly Delta app.
The Department of Motor Vechicles (DMV) also saw disruptions on the Garden Island. The DMV issued a statement addressing the disruption of Microsoft Windows computers, pointing out limitations to certain services, such as driver license and credit card transactions. The outage also affected all DMV kiosks.
“Our IT officials have been working through the night on the disruption that has affected our County of Kaua‘i systems,” said Finance Director Michelle Lizama. “We have restored most of our systems to full operation; however, we are still experiencing several issues with our computers that provide DMV function.”
The Department of Water (DOW) also experienced disruption due to the flawed update.
The DOW issued a statement to customers stating administrative offices were experiencing technical issues ranging from limited email access along with the phones lines being inoperable. The DOW resumed normal business operations for all of its administrative, billing and engineering services at around noon on Friday.
