Australian officers responded quickly to Crowdstrike crash

Local travel professionals and businesses quickly stepped up to offer support to the many Australians whose travel plans were disrupted on Friday and into the weekend.

The chaos was the result of the knock-on effect of the suspension of check-in services and flights at home and abroad.

Computer screens at airports, banks, media outlets and supermarkets were all blue screens warning of the outage. These were some of the major Australian companies thrown into chaos when Microsoft systems were hit by the global IT outage caused by an update from Crowdstrike, a US cybersecurity technology company.

“People who weren’t customers were contacting me in a panic about the disruption because Jetstar had cancelled their flight from Singapore to Melbourne and then rebooked it six days later,” said Steven Green, managing director of Olive Tree.

“There was no accommodation offered with a credit for the flight. They called to ask if we could help get them home early. We could.”

“I booked them two seats with Qantas for Monday night and checked every hour over the weekend to see if there were any other options that had opened up to get them home earlier. They were happy to pay my booking fee and told me they felt blessed to have a guardian angel on their side, trying all the options for them.”

Ivona Siniarska, director of Take Off Go, said she had two clients, a mother and her son, who were traveling across the US for a family reunion and would be flying from Denver to Chicago and Green Bay.

“Their flight was scheduled to leave at 10 a.m., but American Airlines had not canceled the flights in our GDS, so we weren’t sure if the guests would need to go to the airport,” she said.

“They couldn’t miss the family reunion, so we had to act quickly. As the check-in deadline approached and the airline was still showing the flights as cancelled on their website, we decided to avoid the chaos and quickly rent a car so they could drive the 17 hours to make it to the reunion on time.

“We also booked them a hotel in Des Moines for their overnight stay. I received a heartfelt message that they were making it to the family reunion on time. They were grateful that within 15 minutes I was able to cancel their flights, email American Airlines, and book a car and hotel for them to make sure they made it to their family reunion.”

ATIA CEO Dean Long said the disruptions at Microsoft on Friday, which led to flight cancellations and check-in delays on a global and national scale, underscored the invaluable support provided by ATAS-accredited members.

“Travel professionals are worth their weight in gold, especially during unexpected disruptions,” he said.

“Australian travel professionals pulled out all the stops this weekend to help their clients and non-clients who desperately reached out. Choosing an ATAS accredited travel professional means choosing peace of mind and reliable assistance, no matter the circumstances.”