Buffalo Airport, hospitals among WNY services affected by technology outage

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) -- A global technology outage affecting Microsoft apps and services led to major disruptions around the world Friday, including in Western New York.

Buffalo Airport experiencing delays

The Buffalo Niagara International Airport had multiple flights delayed Friday morning as a result of the outage, a spokesperson for the NFTA told WIVB News 4, and they are "advising travelers to contact their airline" as some flights are still able to fly out.

Delta announced it paused its global flight schedule Friday morning as a result of the outage.

The NFTA's trains, buses and police are not experiencing any delays.

Multiple WNY healthcare providers, hospitals affected

Erie County Medical Center activated its internal command center and implemented computer downtime procedures due to the outage, according to a statement to WIVB. However, the hospital said its patient care is "fully functional and uninterrupted" despite the technology issues.

Kaleida Health hospitals were also affected by the outage overnight and had to implement its internal incident command center as well as computer downtime procedures, according to a statement. The healthcare provider is still encouraging staff and patients (including surgeries, clinic visits and physician appointments) to report as scheduled as its IT department managed to bring computer systems back online.

Hospitals operated by Kaleida include Buffalo General Medical Center/Gates Vascular Institute, Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital, Olean General Hospital and Oishei Children’s Hospital.

Roswell Park confirmed that surgeries and procedures will proceed as planned Friday despite technology issues from the outage. The treatment center said in a statement that care is not impacted, but there may be some delays in clinic operations as systems are brought back up.

Some county, city services experiencing issues

The City of Buffalo confirmed to WIVB that it is suffering no major issues at this time due to the outage and that public safety services are still operating.

Numerous computers and servers within Chautauqua County government offices were affected by the outage, according to a statement, and the restoration process "will take some time." Certain emergency applications within the county system experienced some disruptions but are now fully restored, and emergency response is not affected by the outage. All county government offices will be open Friday.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said that the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue affected Microsoft 365 apps and services, and escalating disruptions continued hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing it.

The website DownDectector, which tracks user-reported internet outages, recorded growing outages in services at Visa, ADT security and Amazon, and airlines including American Airlines and Delta.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This is a developing story, check back for updates.