CROWDSTRIKE OUTAGE IMPACT ON GLOBAL AIRFREIGHT MARKET

Intricate airline systems experienced the full impact of the outage. Airlines rely on CrowdStrike software to manage and operate various duties, from crew tracking and scheduling to checking in passengers and making vital pre-flight calculations. Global airlines grounded thousands of flights, with some delayed for hours or even canceled altogether.

AIRFREIGHT UNLIKELY TO BOUNCE BACK QUICKLY

In the days following the outage, most industries have recovered, but the airfreight market is expected to take the longest to bounce back. Currently, planes and cargo are off schedule, with connecting flights needing reorganization based on new arrival times. Experts predict that the current global disarray will take days or even weeks to resolve fully.

AIRLINES IMPACTED BY CROWDSTRIKE

Delta:

• Most impacted by the outage with 5,500 flights canceled since it began on Friday.
• Over 700 flights canceled on Monday, July 22.
• Delta and its regional affiliates accounted for almost two-thirds of the worldwide cancellations on Monday.

United:

• Nearly 1,500 flights have been canceled, but only 17 cancellations occurred on Monday, pointing to a timely recovery.

KLM – Air France:

• Stated they were “forced to suspend most” of their operations on Friday.

Other Airlines Impacted:

• Allegiant Airlines, American Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Spirit Airlines, and Turkish Airlines have all returned to mostly normal operations as of Monday.

Airlines Relatively Unimpacted:

• Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines do not use CrowdStrike, so they remained generally unimpacted by the outage.

ISSUES EXACERBATED BY ALREADY STRAINED CAPACITY

The recent outage grounding thousands of planes has momentarily crippled the global airfreight market, which is already strained by a 14.7% year-on-year increase in air cargo demand as of May 2024 (IATA). This surge is driven by changes to the de minimis rule, container shipping disruptions, and early, unseasonable demand.