Airplanes grounded, slots down: Las Vegas works to recover from tech outage

A outage of Microsoft systems caused ripple effects and service disruptions globally – grounding flights, shutting down slot machines in Las Vegas and causing system problems at all types of businesses.

At the heart of the massive disruption is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that provides software to scores of companies worldwide. The company says the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows, and that the issue behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.

CrowdStrike said a fix was deployed and they were working through remaining disruptions. Disarray continued hours after the problem was first detected, though by mid-morning Friday some businesses’ operations showed signs of normalcy.

The Biden administration said the White House is in regular contact with CrowdStrike officials and that it is in contact with federal agencies assessing the event’s impact.

“At this time, our understanding is that flight operations have resumed across the country, although some congestion remains, and 911 centers are able to receive and process calls,” a senior administration official said in a statement Friday afternoon.

Airport disruptions

Harry Reid International Airport was still seeing long lines Friday morning as major airlines dealt with the tech outage.

According to FlightAware, a flight tracking website, operations at Harry Reid International Airport fared better than many other airports worldwide. By midmorning, FlightAware said there were 81 flight delays and 27 cancellations today at Reid while there were 30,163 worldwide and 5,728 delays within the United States.

Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air posted a message saying its website is unavailable.

“A third-party software system issue is impacting computer systems around the world, including Allegiant’s,” an airline representative said in a statement. “We are working diligently with our service provider to resolve the issue. Until then, customers may experience delays when booking, checking in or accessing boarding passes. We know disruptions to travel plans can be stressful. We appreciate our customers’ patience and understanding as we work hard to minimize the impact this has on their travel.”

Allegiant has around 146 flights a week with its schedule heavily weighted with Friday arrivals and departures.

Southwest Airlines, Reid International’s busiest commercial air carrier, reported Friday that its operations were minimally affected by the outage and had no statement about it.

Across the United States, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, a Delta Air Lines hub, was struggling the most with 27 percent of its flights delayed.

That didn’t take the sting out of the outages at Reid airport. Travelers slept on the floor with their luggage nearby and waited in long lines.

Sylvia Wood, who had come from Richmond for the NAACP’s 115th National Convention and booked a flight for 10 p.m. Thursday so she could gamble, said she had gotten on her Spirit flight but had been told to get off, initially because of a smell on the plane.

A Spirit employee told passengers to go home, she said, but “Everybody said we don’t live here.”

She was frustrated, because she said if she had known about the issues ahead of time, she could have stayed at her hotel.

“I will never — and you can capitalize never — fly Spirit again,” she said.

Elsewhere in Vegas

The outage also affected the airwaves – Las Vegas’ NBC affiliate and its parent company dropped local programming around 10:30 p.m. Thursday. There was no 11 p.m. newscast, but reports returned to air early Friday when anchor Kim Wagner told 4 a.m. viewers about the station’s ongoing problems.

No other stations reported tech issues overnight.

U.S. stock markets continued trading as normal Friday despite the widespread outages. Major indexes were trading lower in the late morning but analysts said the weakness was unrelated to the IT outage.

Las Vegas resident Steve Loehner said he woke up at 3 a.m. Friday for day-trading on his Charles Schwabb account, which was disrupted. He was surprised the New York Stock Exchange kept running — the London Stock Exchange had some service disruptions, but it did not affect trading. Services were restored by midmorning in Las Vegas.

“I understand the trading must go on, but this was not an ordinary situation,” Loehner said.

Other companies in the financial sector, such as Visa, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, reported service disruptions.

Some casinos also struggled with the outages. Green Valley Ranch in Henderson on Thursday night was cashing out players manually as slot machines displayed error messages, leading to long wait times.

As the clock approached midnight, 23-year-old Brandon Ferrales waited by his machine. “I got to work at 5 in the morning,” he said.

He and his friend, 21-year-old Jesus Aguilar, had been waiting around an hour to cash out their more than $70 balance.

“It’s the first machine I played,” Aguilar said. “They have to get to everybody one by one.”

A casino spokesman said disruptions were cleared as of Friday morning.

“Station Casinos was affected by the global outages,” the spokesman said in a statement. “The Company had a temporary outage late Thursday night due to a third-party vendor, lasting a few hours. All systems companywide were quickly restored to full capacity early this morning.”

Many Strip properties on Friday morning appeared to be functioning. Gaming and hotel operations at The Venetian, Treasure Island, Caesars Entertainment properties and Wynn Resorts were normal. A spokesman for MGM Resorts International on Friday said the company’s hotels and gaming floors are operating normally.

While other emergency services in the U.S. reported outage issues, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police said it had not been impacted. Clark County Fire Department officials said the EMS patient care tracking system was “slow” but still functional.

“There are no delays in calls for service or anything like that,” Assistant Chief Sean said.

Similarly, at least one Safelite glass repair service in west Las Vegas and Dunkin Donuts and Lifetime Fitness in Summerlin were open and operating but dealing with system problems. Starbucks’ system also appeared affected with mobile ordering out of commission. Customers could still order in-store.

Workers at a Taco Bell on Flamingo Road and Decatur Boulevard said credit card services were down Friday morning but restored by about 10:20 a.m.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

The Associated Press and Review-Journal reporters Noble Brigham, Estelle Atkinson, John Katsilometes, Mick Akers, David Danzis, Sean Hemmersmeier and Richard Velotta contributed to this report.