Microsoft outage disrupts businesses worldwide; Air India, IndiGo issue customer alerts

The outage has also affected India’s aviation sector, prompting Air India and IndiGo to issue separate updates about the impact on their customer support services.

While IndiGo warned that its email support system was experiencing problems, Air India said its flight operations and customer communication channels remained unaffected.

The two airlines have advised passengers to use the available alternative channels where necessary.

IndiGo email support hit, Air India activates backup routes

IndiGo said its email support service had been affected by the Microsoft disruption and warned that it might not receive messages sent by customers.

The airline advised passengers requiring urgent assistance to contact its digital support assistant, 6E Skai, through its website or mobile application.

It added that its other customer support channels continued to operate.

The low cost domestic airline, however, stated that its flight operations were fully operational and remained "unaffected".

Air India, meanwhile, reported that the disruption had not affected its flights or customer communication systems.

The airline said it had redirected email traffic through alternative routes to ensure incoming messages were not lost.

According to Air India, its teams were responding to customer emails within the usual 24-hour timeframe.

Financial markets, businesses struggle

The outage has affected India's financial services sector, with employees facing difficulties accessing research reports and communicating with clients.

People working in equity markets told the BBC that they were unable to access daily research reports ahead of morning meetings, which play an important role in investment and trading decisions.

A senior executive at an Indian brokerage said the company had alternative arrangements for email communication.

However, Microsoft Teams calls, particularly those involving major clients, had become difficult to conduct.

The disruption has also affected financial professionals overseas.

Rita Elkazzi, UBS Group’s execution-sales head for Australia and New Zealand, told Bloomberg that she had switched to telephone calls and alternative communication platforms after Outlook stopped working.

"It's been a bit of a disaster and I can't believe still not resolved," Elkazzi said.

She added that the disruption required additional care when checking trade recaps and verifying transaction details.

Other businesses have also turned to alternative communication methods.

Communications consultant Yazid Ahmad told the BBC that he had started using personal email accounts, including Gmail, to contact other companies.

He said he was concerned that important messages might be missed because of the disruption.

Govt agencies report email problems

The Microsoft outage has also affected government departments and public institutions in several countries.

Australia’s intelligence and federal police agencies confirmed email-related disruptions, although officials indicated that the impact was limited.

Mike Burgess, head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, said the problem was largely related to email systems.

Japan also reported difficulties with its shared government IT platform.

However, Digital Minister Toshiharu Furukawa said government agencies had alternative communication options, including telephone calls, chat services and text messages, allowing their operations to continue.

In Singapore, authorities said some government systems had been affected and warned that email disruptions could delay responses to public enquiries.

The Supreme Court of the Philippines also cautioned that responses to emails and other transactions might take longer than usual.

OpenAI, Anthropic report connectivity issues

The disruption has extended to artificial intelligence companies that rely on connections with Microsoft services.

OpenAI said it was investigating an issue affecting its connections to Microsoft’s services, which had caused some tools to malfunction or behave unexpectedly.

Anthropic also identified problems affecting its links to Microsoft 365.

The incident has renewed attention on the dependence of businesses and institutions on a small number of technology providers.

Nicky Choo, a cybersecurity expert at Mimecast, said the disruption highlighted the importance of maintaining alternative technology platforms and contingency arrangements.

He advised businesses against relying entirely on a single provider, stressing the need for backup systems to keep essential operations running during service interruptions.

Microsoft works to restore affected services

Microsoft has faced difficulties restoring its services fully, with users continuing to report connectivity problems involving Outlook, Teams and Copilot.

The company attributed the disruption to an infrastructure overload after some servers unexpectedly became unavailable.

This left the remaining systems handling additional traffic, putting further pressure on the network.

Microsoft has been restarting infrastructure and deploying fixes in an effort to restore normal operations.

However, earlier recovery attempts did not produce lasting improvements.

In its latest update, the company reported "marginal success" in addressing the disruption.

It said it was continuing to assess server performance and monitor whether the corrective measures were working as intended.

The scale of the outage has been significant.

Downdetector recorded close to 140,000 reports of Outlook problems at the peak of the disruption on Thursday evening.

Reports of service interruptions also came from at least 74 countries and territories.