Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said he and his department contacted major airlines on Friday to remind them “of their responsibilities to take care of passengers” amid a major global tech outage.
“If you’re planning to fly today, you definitely want to check with your airline,” Buttigieg said during an appearance on CNBC.
“Get the latest information,” the transportation secretary said. “Find out what is going on in terms of the ground delay programs affecting many hubs and possible cancellations.”
The outage has been at the center of problems for airlines and major companies throughout the nation Friday, but its occurrence is not believed to stem from a security breach or hack.
A glitch from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike on Microsoft Windows computers is believed to be at the heart of the standstill, and the outage is responsible for the delay of at least 1,500 flights and more than 900 flight cancellations.
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“We have reminded the airlines of their responsibilities to take care of passengers if they experience major delays,” Buttigieg said. “The issue has been identified. It’s really a matter of the kind of ripple or cascade effects as they get everything in their networks back to normal.”
“These systems, these flights, they run so tightly, so back to back, that even after a root cause is addressed, you can still be feeling those impacts throughout the day,” he said.
