Written on 13^th August 2024

Overcoming the Odds During a Global IT Outage

On July 19, 2024, a global IT outage caused chaos amongst businesses, hospitals, airlines and more. Millions across the world were affected by the outage, flights were grounded across the United States and travelers were left stranded. TAG's team of expert Travel Specialists hopped into action to accommodate travelers in any way that they could—switching flights and connections to make travel as seamless as possible during this extremely rare occurrence.

We heard from a valued client traveling from Nashville to New York City during the worldwide event; in this unusual circumstance, her travel was booked outside of TAG and she desperately needed our help. When she called her dedicated travel specialist in a panic, TAG was still able to get her well on her way to her destination. Here's what she had to say:

I typically book my travel through TAG, but in this instance, I had my boyfriend book our flights out to New York for a quick weekend trip to see the Foo Fighters. Never again will I make that mistake if I can avoid it, as a global IT outage threw us into a whole lot of unexpected chaos. Thank goodness my longstanding relationship with TAG came through just in the nick of time.
 
As my boyfriend and I were in an Uber on the way to the airport, I received a notification from my friend who had an earlier flight the morning of the outage: “Don’t come to the airport, all the flights are canceled. It’s chaos here!” Initially, I thought she was overreacting because we never received an email from the airline carrier we were booked with. I didn't understand how all flights could be canceled when the weather in Nashville was beautiful. I figured it had to have been bad weather or that something was going on at the destination she was flying to.
 
To my surprise, I looked up my flight number to double check and it WAS canceled; and, two other flights with the same route were delayed by at least five hours. At this point in time, we still had no clue what was going on, or that a global outage was occurring. The weather in New York was also bright and sunny, so we couldn't understand why our flight was canceled and knew that something strange had to be going on. With tickets to see the Foo Fighters in New York that night, we were determined to get to our destination, so I continued on my way to the airport with the intent to speak with the airline support desk attendants and figure out a plan.
 
As the doors opened up, it was impossible to miss the line for the support desk as it made a giant snake formation with at least 200 people waiting to be helped. Together, we stood in the queue and my boyfriend attempted to call the airline directly. He was directed to an automated machine while I frantically searched on my phone to see if we could change flights—there was no availability into New York on our airline until the next morning. Driving to New York would have taken 14 hours, so that wasn't a possibility either. We accepted our fate—our odds of making it to the concert were slim. We were stuck.

Eerily, there was no background sound of planes leaving the tarmac. Most other airlines were having the same issues, with flights delayed significantly or completely canceled. Very few flights were departing on time, if at all. I considered looking into the possibility of flying into other airports; however, with terrible phone service and limited airport Wi-Fi, searching for any available routes would have taken too long.

After exhausting our options at the airport directly, I decided to lean on TAG to see if there was anything they could do. I called my dedicated agent and filled her in on the mess we were in. Within three minutes exactly, and after thoroughly searching all airline routes into EWR, JFK and LGA, she was able to find two open seats on separate flights, landing two hours apart. In an instant, amidst the extremely limited flight options, she was able to book us on the flights right then and there; waiting in line would have taken us another 45 minutes to get to the front, likely to be told to go home and come back in the morning. We took sighs of relief, picked up our belongings and headed straight through security.
 
When we finally made it to our gate, we learned there had been a global IT outage and most flight routes had been affected. Miraculously, both of our new flights departed on time—two of only a handful that left Nashville International Airport that day.

Had it not been for TAG, we wouldn’t have made it to New York until the next day—a major loss to our time and resources. Our agent made everything seamless during the heat of chaos. Travel is unpredictable and doing things yourself can sometimes seem like the easier option, but, if you travel frequently, using an experienced travel agent can make life so much easier. In a time where it seemed there were no options available, TAG was able to make it happen. We made it to the Foo Fighters with plenty of time to spare and needless to say, they didn't disappoint.