RuAviation

A global technical glitch caused by a bug in a Crowdstrike software update has had serious consequences for multiple companies and airports around the world. Communication problems affected leading US carriers including United Airlines, Delta Airlines and American Airlines. They reported outages that caused delays and disruptions to flight schedules.

The problems were not limited to the US. In the UK, Sky News channel was unable to go off air, and difficulties also affected the country’s largest railway operator. In Australia, telecom operators, banks and airlines were affected, and these problems were felt by a significant number of people.

Ukraine was also not left behind. Parcel delivery company Novaya Pochta, mobile operator Vodafone and Sense Bank reported failures in their work. The reason for all these problems is an erroneous software update that caused a critical error in the Windows operating system on computers and servers. Despite this, Microsoft said that services are gradually being restored and measures are being taken to stabilise the situation.

The Russian Leonardo system will be implemented in Venezuela in early 2024

The situation in the Russian aviation industry was quite different, and the global disruption had virtually no impact on domestic airlines and airports. Domodedovo’s press service said that the airport was not affected by the global disruption and is ready to offer its partners the Astra backup check-in system, developed entirely on a Russian basis. Red Wings noted that Russian airlines have long since switched to domestic booking systems, thanks to which the failure did not affect them.

Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development stressed that the Microsoft incident demonstrated the strategic importance of import substitution of foreign software. Russian airlines and airports continue to operate normally, with flights running as scheduled.

Russian civil aviation has been actively implementing domestic specialised software solutions for several years, including ticket booking and passenger check-in systems, as well as baggage handling. The fact that the global disruption did not affect the Russian aviation industry testifies to the effectiveness of the import substitution programme, and the transition to domestic software has demonstrated the industry’s independence from Western suppliers. It is import substitution that allows civil aviation to stay out of global problems caused by foreign software failures.