Montreal’s Trudeau Airport affected by global technology outage

Many hoping to beat the rush at Montreal’s Trudeau Airport for the start of Quebec’s construction holidays have been met with delays and cancellations caused by a global tech outage.

“It’s very frustrating and I don’t know what they’re going to do about it, but they better do something,” said Sydney Wajcman, a Montrealer whose Porter Airlines flight to Halifax was cancelled.

The large outage has grounded fights and left media outlets and several banks offline.

“Airlines affected by the global IT outage are gradually resuming operations,” said the YUL airport on social media. “For specific flight information, please contact your airline directly.”

Later Friday morning, systems had started to come back online, but the damage was already done at YUL, where several flights scheduled for Friday morning were cancelled or delayed.

“The situation is just frustrating. Yeah, just got to the airport and they’re telling us the computers are out. So we’re stuck here, stranded in Montreal,” said Charity, whose from Australia, trying to get to Toronto.

Daniella, also from Australia, trying to get to Toronto, saying, “Right now we don’t know where to go. Apparently, there’s some trains that go to Toronto, so we’re going to try and figure out whether we can get that train to Toronto. But other than that, we’re stuck here. We are stranded. Nowhere to go.” 

All Porter Airlines flights were cancelled in the morning.

“Well I am going for 10 days, I took off work for this, I’m going to see family, I had really exciting plans, and now I’m sitting here and I’m losing a day of being with them, I’m losing a day of work, I could have been at work, and I have to sit here basically for another seven hours,” said Wajcman.

“It all comes down to the money right? Like how much time and money you’re spending on doing this and all the waste, it’s just a bunch of waste.” 

The YUL airport explained what caused the multiple delays and cancellations in Montreal on X.

“A global IT outage is causing technical issues for some air carriers. Flight delays and cancellations are possible. For specific flight information, please contact your airline directly.”

The computer outage has caused disruptions to flights to American destinations from Montreal.

“I’m here and I don’t know what to do because they said they couldn’t start again before noon and I have another plane to catch in Toronto. So it’s very confusing,” said Gilles Lamontagne, a Montrealer trying to get to Washington, D.C. for vacation.

“I have only a few days in Washington and I don’t want to lose my two days. I really don’t know what to do because they don’t know. They don’t know when it’s going to run again.” 

Many companies including Microsoft 365, Visa, and others have been affected.