Japanese airlines, restaurants, railway and theme park companies, among others, reported system disruptions on Friday in a global technology outage linked to Microsoft services that has affected a wide range of industries.
Japan Airlines Co. said on its website that bookings, reservation changes and cancellations were temporarily unavailable for international and domestic services, adding that purchases could not be made for international flights.
Jetstar Japan Co. reported experiencing system malfunctions, including boarding procedures, from around 1:40 p.m., with the issues likely linked to problems reported worldwide with Microsoft's systems. HK Express and Jeju Air also had system problems at Narita airport, according to Narita International Airport Corp.
West Japan Railway Co. said that functions on its website and mobile app used to display the status of train services were affected by the Microsoft outage, while around 30 percent of McDonald's outlets across Japan have suspended operations due to a cash register glitch, McDonald's Co. (Japan) said.
USJ LLC, the operator of Universal Studios Japan, said that cash registers at restaurants on the theme park grounds had been unusable since around 2 p.m., leading to the closure of most of them. It said that rides and other attractions had not been affected.
Microsoft said its cloud services had been affected by services running security software from U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
"CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts," the cybersecurity firm's CEO, George Kurtz, posted on social media platform X. "The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed," the post read.
Among companies outside Japan, Australian flagship airline Qantas Airways Ltd. said on its website that a third-party outage disrupted its own services, including booking and managing flights.
U.S. carriers such as American Airlines and Delta Air Lines grounded flights due to communications issues, according to local reports.
Related coverage:
McDonald's shuts 30% of outlets in Japan over cash register glitch
