Buenos Aires, Argentina - July 22, 2024

International airlines gradually resumed services on Saturday, the day after an unprecedented computer failure that caused scenes of chaos at airports and also affected hospitals, railway companies and financial firms around the world.

The outage was caused by a faulty update of an anti-virus programe from US cyber security group CrowdStrike Falcon on Microsoft's Windows operating systems.

The outage cancelled flights at a multitude of airports, where hundreds of passengers filled terminals waiting to find out if they could travel.

Several US airlines reported that they had resumed operations, although some 1,500 flights were still cancelled at midday on Saturday.

In total, some 3,400 flights were cancelled on Friday in the United States, according to the website Flightaware.com, the worst day for air traffic this year in the country.

In Asia, airports in Hong Kong, South Korea and Thailand announced the restoration of check-in services.

Operations also returned to normal at airports in India, Indonesia and Singapore. Beijing airports were not affected, Chinese state television said.

"I would like to personally apologize to all the organizations, groups and individuals who have been affected by this disruption," CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on US broadcaster CNBC on Friday.

SHOTLIST:
1. various signs in the boarding area at Argentina's international airport;
2. various at Argentina's international airport;
3. various cancelled flights at Argentina's international airport;
4. various of Dallas Fort-Worth Airport.