Friday's wave of global IT outages, which affected CrowdStrike customers who use Windows products, has led to more than 1,100 flight cancelations and hundreds of delays in the U.S., leaving travelers to navigate uncharted next steps as major airlines deploy workarounds and slowly come back online.
With interim efforts underway at American Airlines, United and Delta, Nick Ewen, a travel expert and senior editorial director of The Points Guy, told ABC News that there's a potential lengthier domino effect as they get back to fully operational. "There may be knock-on effects with the impacted airlines throughout the day and even into the weekend," he said. "This is because planes and crew members get stranded when a flight is cancelled, and if that plane and/or crew are scheduled to operate two more flights later in the day, and then another four the next day, all of those are at risk of being disrupted.
" For anyone traveling this weekend, Ewen suggested people "make sure they're proactively keeping an eye on their flights to learn about delays or cancellations as soon as possible." "Download your airline's app, which may allow you to track where your inbound plane is coming from. If not, an app like FlightRadar24 allows you to see the registration number of the plane scheduled to operate your flight," he said.
"If you're waiting to depart from New York in two hours and your plane is still sitting in Texas, you're not leaving on time -- even if the airline's system is saying your.