File: Matthew Thorsen ©️ Seven Days
Burlington International Airport
Updated at 1:14 p.m.
Flight delays and cancellations were reported at Burlington International Airport amid an international tech program outage that
has caused chaos for travel, banking and media outlets worldwide.
The University of Vermont Health Network was also hit by the IT issue, though emergency departments remained open, spokesperson Annie Mackin said in a written statement. The online patient portal MyChart was functioning, she wrote.
"Most procedures and appointments are continuing, with some delays," Mackin wrote. "Certain elective procedures and infusions have been rescheduled, and patients have been contacted. In almost all cases, unless patients hear otherwise from their provider, they should arrive as planned for their procedure or appointment."
There were exceptions, Mackin wrote in a 12 p.m. update:
- UVM Medical Center (Burlington, Vt.): Outpatient phlebotomy is unable to accept patients today, and unable to contact patients with appointments. Patients will be rescheduled as soon as possible. UVM Medical Center dental clinic is offline and all patients have been cancelled for the day.
- Porter Medical Center (Middlebury, Vt.): Phones at certain primary care clinics are not working properly, so patients may have trouble getting through. However, patients with scheduled primary care appointments should arrive as planned unless contacted by their provider.
- Central Vermont Medical Center (Berlin, Vt.): Outpatient phlebotomy: Patients should not seek phlebotomy appointments today, and those with appointments will be rescheduled as soon as possible. Radiology is also currently not able to take patients, but expects to be functional by 1 pm.
- Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital (Plattsburgh, N.Y.): Some physicians' offices are experiencing issues with their phone system, but patients should go to appointments as scheduled today.
At BTV, American, Delta and United airlines were experiencing delays. Four inbound and outbound flights had been canceled by early Friday afternoon.
"We've met with all airlines at Leahy BTV and they are working to get all flights out," an airport spokesperson said in a statement. "Status is dependent on fitting the flight into the national system."
Another update said the airport was
"working with all of our airline partners to make sure everyone is comfortable at Leahy BTV while they continue to work through this challenge."
State IT officials said about 10 percent of state computer systems had been affected by the issue as of Friday morning. No 911 or Vermont 2-1-1 systems were affected, nor were state websites.
The outage did affect some email systems, but officials expected everything to be restored by the end of day.
The outage is related to an issue with cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The company reported the problem was linked to a "content update" for systems running Microsoft Windows. "A fix has been deployed," CrowdStrike CEO
George Kurtz said, but it's unclear how long it will take.
Kevin McCallum contributed reporting.