Things have been going wrong in the aviation security sector for the past few days. After the false bomb threats at the beginning of November, now comes the IT difficulties encountered by Amadeus and a global outage affecting Microsoft services, highlighting the growing dependence of the aviation sector on major technology providers.
Certainly, this is a logical evolution over the past thirty years. For airlines, booking systems, flight management tools, and communication infrastructures via IT and digital technology now constitute essential links in the operational chain. And it is not a matter of returning to the good old methods of the past, where the telephone –see the telex and fax!- was used to confirm reservations and routes…
Nevertheless, the IT failure of recent days can quickly disrupt relations with passengers, travel agencies and business partners. And on a global scale.
The problems concerning Amadeus They have notably raised concerns in the aviation sector due to the central role of its solutions in booking, checking in and distributing tickets. The cyberattack, although not affecting the smooth running of flights, nevertheless transmitted a large amount of private passenger information.
Data on more than 400,000 bookings have been revealed by a dozen airlines, most of which are located in Asia.
Finnair says 116,000 customers were affected by the cyberattack; Japan Airlines reported booking data for about 92,000 customers; while Cathay Pacific reported some 53,000 affected bookings.
According to information provided by the carriers, the attack potentially enabled the acquisition of passenger names, booking references, itineraries and, in some cases, passport details, contact numbers and loyalty program numbers.
After Amadeus, Microsoft
To these difficulties, on Thursday, November 12, an international outage of the Microsoft 365 services was added. This affected, in particular, Outlook, Teams, SharePoint and Copilot, with repercussions in the United States, in the Asia-Pacific region and in other international markets. Companies and administrations from many countries were affected.
In detail, it was revealed that in India, several airlines reported difficulties. IndiGo and Akasa Air warned their customers that their email support services were affected, complicating their interactions with their customer service centers.
Air India stated that its air operations were not affected, while temporarily redirecting its email traffic to maintain communications with passengers. SpiceJet, on the other hand, reported more direct consequences at the Delhi airport, with three flight cancellations and two other delayed departures.
In Hong Kong, Cathay Pacific has also confirmed the continuation of its operations, while warning that some passengers using Microsoft messaging services may not receive their flight notifications. The company has recommended that they check its website and mobile app. It has also continued to distribute digital boarding passes via its app, SMS and emails, while activating emergency procedures.
In Japan, the consequences have gone beyond the air transport sector alone. Sagawa Express, a luggage delivery provider at airports and train stations, has reportedly been unable to accept certain online reservations for its luggage transport service to airports, according to Japanese media.
The United States and Australia have also been among the markets affected by disruptions in Microsoft services. Although no comparable wave of airline cancellations has been reported there, the incident serves as a reminder that carriers, airports, and tourism companies rely heavily on these digital infrastructures.
Hoteliers, travel agencies and booking platforms can also suffer the consequences of such failures: processing reservations, exchanges with suppliers, refunds or last-minute changes become more difficult when messaging and collaboration tools are unavailable.
Microsoft attributed the incident to problems affecting its server infrastructure and the Exchange Online services. The group stated that it had detected no evidence of a cyberattack. After initial difficulties in restoring services, it reported a slow improvement in the stability of its servers. However, this was too slow, as on Friday evening the company was still working on a complete restoration of its services.
These successive incidents thus remind us that while digitalization certainly improves efficiency and service quality, it also concentrates significant digital risks in the event of a failure. Especially when it is in the hands of a limited number of technology providers.
