Flights resume after global IT crash wreaks havoc

PARIS, France — Planes were gradually taking off again Saturday after global airlines, banks and media were thrown into turmoil by one of the biggest IT crashes in recent years, caused by an update to an antivirus program.

Passenger crowds had swelled at airports on Friday as dozens of flights were cancelled after an update to a program operating on Microsoft Windows crashed systems worldwide.

By Saturday, officials said the situation had returned virtually to normal in airports across Germany and France, as Paris prepared to welcome millions for the Olympic Games starting on Friday.

Multiple US airlines and airports across Asia said they had resumed operations, with check-in services restored in Hong Kong, South Korea and Thailand, and mostly back to normal in India, Indonesia and at Singapore's Changi Airport as of Saturday afternoon.

Microsoft estimated Saturday that 8.5 million Windows devices were affected in the global IT crash, adding that the number amounted to less than one percent of all Windows machines.

"While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services", it said.

Microsoft said the issue began at 1900 GMT on Thursday, affecting Windows users running the CrowdStrike Falcon cybersecurity software.

In a Saturday blog post, CrowdStrike said it had released an update on Thursday night that had caused a system crash and the infamous "blue screen of death" fatal error message.

CrowdStrike said it had rolled out a fix for the problem, and the company's boss, George Kurtz, told US news channel CNBC he wanted to "personally apologize to every organization, every group and every person who has been impacted".

The company also said it could take a few days for things to fully get back to normal.

Britain's National Health Service was hobbled by the crash on Friday, preventing doctors from accessing patient records and booking appointments.

A "majority of systems... are now coming back online in most areas, however they are still running slightly slower than usual", an NHS spokesperson said, warning of disruption continuing into next week.

Media companies were also