In the early hours of July 19, outages at Microsoft disrupted normal daily functions across the globe. Hospitals were forced to cancel procedures, thousands of flights were canceled, and I, unaware any of this was happening, was among the many preparing for a morning flight. Mine was on Spirit Airlines, heading from New York to Chicago, scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Here’s how that worked out for me.
6:45 a.m.: The first sign of trouble comes in the Uber. I am running late, of course, doing dishes at 6:15 a.m. just minutes before my car arrived, and had neglected to check in for my flight. As we drove, I input my name and confirmation number into the Spirit website and receive an error message. That’s weird, I think. I definitely paid for the flight. I try a few more times as we round the bend into LaGuardia Airport. Error. Error. Error in a bright red text box at the top of the webpage. Then, I see a camera crew standing outside of Terminal A.
7 a.m.: I enter the terminal into a relatively small, circular room with green marbled walls and see approximately three more camera crews ready to film journalists. There’s a crowd. It’s manageable in its current state, but thickening, and Policemen are weaving in and out of the bodies. My first thought is: bomb threat, but in a different part of the airport. The energy feels that feral. Undeterred, I walk over to a check-in kiosk and attempt to get my boarding pass. “It doesn’t work,” says an older woman slouched on the ground with her back against an adjacent kiosk. “There’s an outage. Nothing works.” She’s guarding this kiosk, she says wearily, so she’s first in line when the computer comes back online. I like the idea and attempt to stay with her, but tire after 30 seconds. There is a physical check-in desk, but it’s down a hallway, and staff is blocking it off. All of us are relegated to this entryway, lined by yellow ticket booths that won’t dispense tickets, and too many boom mics for anyone to feel comfortable. No one really knows what’s going on.
7:15 a.m.-ish: I recognize a member of one of the journalist crews and say “hi.” I ask a few questions but within 60 seconds (or longer, I fear) realize I might be disrupting what is about to be a major newscast. Their eyes look stressed. I, a print journalist, am afraid of large camera equipment and have accidentally never learned a thing about broadcast news. A wave of awareness flushes over me, immediately followed by embarrassment, and I go stand on the other side of the room as an act of penance. The woman guarding the kiosk has abandoned her scheme and is now milling about the crowd. I google the outage. Apparently it’s due to an issue with Microsoft’s cloud service and an update to CrowdStrike, a third party cybersecurity software that Microsoft uses.
7:28 a.m.: The crowd is reaching its peak. It’s not body to body, but it’s enough to make me nervous. Now, the man who will act as Spirit’s town crier begins calling out directions in a gruff, strained voice. He tells the people going to Chicago to form a line, but all of the more specific details are hard to understand. Something about checked bags? Every time this man will yell over the next 15 minutes, a mass of people will push in closer to try and figure out what he is saying, and hardly anyone will hear him clearly.
I walk around and ask a few people what they thought the man — who seems rightfully frustrated and is doing his best and should have been provided some kind voice amplification device — said and compile their varied responses into a course of action. Even though I don’t have a boarding pass, I go to the back of the line for people flying to Chicago, which puts me right by the terminal’s front entrance. As new people come in and ask what’s going on, I break the news.
The journalist I know comes to film near where I’m standing and asks me to help her keep people from wandering into their shot. I do, and imagine this as my redemption.
7:34 a.m.: They let me into the second room where the check in desks sit even though I don’t have a boarding pass. This room is much calmer: there are fewer people, and we have been narcotized by the idea that we’ve made progress in this situation. I’m put into another line guided by switch-backing ropes; I’m not sure where it leads. Well, line is a generous term for it. Corral is probably more accurate. We are herded and at a standstill. People who were clever enough to check in yesterday and economical enough not to a check bag get to walk past us and go straight to the gate.
A young man video calls someone. “Waiting in the airport because Microsoft decided to do some bullshit,” he says.
7:44 a.m.: An announcement comes over the loudspeaker that says they are “processing one flight at a time and it’s fully manual.”
I look back at the room we came from. People are thronging around the doorway and cameras are poking out above their heads. This must be like what celebrities see when they finally duck into some industry hangout after pushing through paparazzi and they peek out of the window to glimpse the chaos. Maybe a B or C list celebrity, though. It’s not that wild.
7:54 a.m.: A man says to a woman, “I hope we get free flights from this.” She says, “We probably won’t.” They laugh because they know she’s right. Most people in my line are sitting now. A woman in leggings is doing yoga. I’m kind of walking in a very tight circle. We haven’t moved yet.
7:57 a.m.: The line moves for the first time. We all advance the equivalent of one person-space.
7:59 a.m.: I give in and drop my backpack on the ground, too. I haven’t eaten and am getting hungry, but my only sustenance is listening to other people’s conversations. People have adopted the friendliness of communal confusion. Everyone is more interested in talking. A woman with porcelain skin and long wavy hair tells a man that she works — that’s it, just that she works — and he’s surprised. He’s wearing cargo shorts and every time I look at him his eyes are opened so wide that I can see an unnerving amount of white. The pair seem to have hit it off.
8:11 a.m.: Finally make it out of the roped portion of the line and can see a horizon: I realize I am waiting for the check-in counter to get my boarding pass.
8:33 a.m.: Over the loudspeaker, a voice announces, “In case you guys don’t know, we have a system outage.” Everyone groans. A flight to Orlando is announced as canceled. I am three people away from getting my boarding pass.
8:38 a.m.: At the check in counter, the computers don’t work at all, so a woman handwrites my boarding pass and keeps track of seat assignments on the back of a long piece of receipt paper. She doesn’t assign me a seat and tells me I will get one at the gate. After, I head to security, which I get through in about 5 minutes.
8:46 a.m.: Make it to the gate. No one is behind the counter.
8:55 a.m.: I secure a coffee and an egg and cheese croissant and remember that life can be beautiful again, until I overhear that our plane is supposedly delayed in its previous flight.
9:20 a.m.: Our plane makes it to the gate and, as the crew of previous flight de-boards, waiting passengers ask them if our flight is canceled. “We’re done” one allegedly says. Another says “no comment.”
I spend the next 15 minutes talking to a woman with a background in tech. She says she will be “doing her own research” into Microsoft after this. I wonder to her whether it’s safe to get on the plane, and we both discuss how astounded we are that Microsoft influences so much of society’s basic functioning.
9:40 a.m.: A third woman interrupts our conversation to take a picture of the plane through the skinny window between us. “Yellow plane,” she said in what I guess is a heavy Eastern European accent. “Very nice.”
9:42 a.m.: Boarding begins! Those with seat assignments go first. Passengers are boarded by groups of 10 rows, starting with the front of the plane.
10:28 a.m.: I arrive at my window seat, assigned to me as my ticket was being checked at the gate, and a teenage boy is sitting there. He points to the row behind him and asks if I can instead sit in his middle seat. I badly want to nap with my head against the plane’s wall of the plane, but I sigh and say, “Sure.” He thanks me multiple times, then remarks to his friends that someone is sitting in his coach’s seat. A day of lawlessness, I think. The computer would never have let this happen.
11:38 a.m.: We have been in the air awhile now. Spirit rolls a cart with snacks and drinks down the aisle and still charges for every last item.
