Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports operating as normal following IT global outage

Emirates and flydubai confirm flights are not impacted by the CrowdStrike defect

Air travel is slowly returning to normal following a global technology outage that saw flights grounded or delayed around the world. Getty Images / AFP

Following a technology outage that caused travel disruption around the world, operations at airports and airlines are returning to normal on Sunday.

In the UAE, flight tracking website FlightRadar24 reported low airport disruption on Sunday morning.

Good traffic flow was reported at Zayed International Airport and in Dubai, only minor delays were on the radar according to the latest data from the aviation website.

Emirates flights to and from Dubai remain unimpacted by the outage.

“There has been no impact to our operations due to the global IT disruption since our last statement on Friday,” a representative for the Dubai airline told The National.

It's also operations as usual at flydubai. “The third-party IT issue has not impacted our operations, we had minor delays on a few of our inbound flights from across the network,” confirmed a spokesperson for the airline on Sunday.

Flight status data from Dubai International Airport shows that only a handful of flights are delayed today, including some services to Oman, Pakistan and Poland.

In Abu Dhabi, Etihad Airways previously reported that flights were operating as normal, but advised travellers to expect “some limited delays to services across its network as a result of the global disruption.” The National has contacted the national airline of the UAE for the latest update.

Low-cost airline Wizz Air told The National all UAE flights are back to normal.

"Wizz Air Abu Dhabi confirms that all systems and services are now recovered. The airline has managed the disruption arising from the incident with a 100 per cent completion rate on all flights to and from the UAE," said a representative for the airline.

Globally, aviation patterns are also returning to normal in most destinations.

London Heathrow airport is not experiencing any major disruptions on Sunday. The international hub is in the middle of its peak summer period, having recorded its busiest ever day for passenger numbers on June 30.

Authorities at neighbouring London City airport have confirmed it was not impacted directly by the outage, and it was also business as usual at London Stanstead, with officials issuing a statement confirming “operations are now running as normal.”

At London's Gatwick Airport, most travel issues have been resolved, including IT systems which crashed during the outage, but some flights may continue to be impacted on Sunday.

“We expect the majority of our flights to operate as usual tomorrow,” reads a post on the airport's account from Saturday. “Some delays and cancellations will however continue this evening and over the weekend.”

ABTA, the largest travel association in the UK, reported that “the majority of flights are going ahead”.

It advised any passengers with upcoming travel to check the latest information from airlines and the departure airport, and to carry essentials items with them in case of any knock-on delays.

Fully restored services in India and US travel waivers

Several major US airlines including Delta, United and American Airlines grounded flights during the outage, which had knock-on effects at airports around the world. Travel waivers were issued for US passengers impacted by the technology fail.

In India, where IndiGo, Air India and SpiceJet cancelled flights following the outage, travel is largely back to normal.

The country’s union minister for civil aviation took to X to post an update that airline services had resumed on Saturday. Low cost airline IndiGo, which cancelled about 200 flights on Friday and had technical problems with its reservations system, also used the social media platform to confirm that travel services have been “fully restored”.

Australian airline Qantas previously announced that some of its flights were delayed due to the global outage. On Saturday, it advised travellers that the situation was back to normal.

“Technical issues due to a global third party outage have been resolved,” reported the airline on its website and advised passengers to continue to travel to airports for upcoming flights.

Singapore Airlines said on X that “flights are operating as scheduled”. The South-east Asian airline has also restored services at its main services centre and telephone reservation lines following their suspension on Friday.