By Sunita 

Pune: Services of some airlines have been affected at the Pune International Airport due to Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), a critical error screen displayed by Microsoft Windows. 

Many computers and laptops running on Microsoft Windows have crashed across the globe. Online services of some airlines have been affected. However, not a single flight has been cancelled at the Pune airport. Some flights have been delayed by 10 to 40 minutes.

Microsoft said that their Azure Cloud and Microsoft 365 services were facing glitches. “We are aware of the issues and our teams are working to solve them. We have traced the reason behind the problems,” stated a company communique.

It warned users not to solve the issue on their own and asked them to wait till further instructions. They promised to update on the issue. Many major IT firms, big banks, international airliners, Gmail, Amazon and other emergency services have been impacted in India.

Flights delayed at city airport

Typically, take-off or landing of flights at the Pune airport is not frequent during the daytime. The BSOD error suddenly affected online bookings and web check-in of airlines such as Indigo, SpiceJet, Akasa and Vistara. Therefore, passengers had to physically go to the airport and check in. The airlines concerned deployed additional manpower at the airport for the purpose. 

Though air services to Delhi, Mumbai, Goa, Dubai and to some other countries have been majorly affected, no flights have been cancelled at the Pune airport. The concerned airlines posted on social media: ‘Our systems have been affected. We will immediately update you after the issue is solved. We appreciate your patience’.

Some of the affected flights included Pune-Hyderabad, Pune-Raipur, Pune-Delhi, Pune-Goa, Pune-Jodhpur, Pune-Baroda and Pune-Goa. They took off with a delay.

Commenting on the phenomenon, aviation expert Dhairyasheel Vandekar said, “Once in a while, such incidents happen in today’s digital world. After encountering the issue, all renowned agencies of the world participated to solve it. It is really praiseworthy that care has been taken so that minimum inconvenience is caused to air passengers, including Microsoft customers. It is laudable that not a single flight has been cancelled at the Pune airport. An alternative system needs to be kept ready assuming any such eventuality in the future so that passengers are least affected.”