The recent CrowdStrike outage has added significant strain to the already stressed global supply chain. CrowdStrike, a major player in cybersecurity, provides essential services that help protect the digital infrastructure of numerous companies worldwide. The outage, however, disrupted these services, leading to widespread concerns and operational challenges across various sectors, including logistics.
Air Freight Service Expecting Potential Delays
Air freight was hit the hardest, with many global airlines grounding flights. The complex air cargo system is facing a recovery period that could last days or weeks.
Thousands of flights were ground or delayed at the world’s largest air cargo hubs in Europe, Asia and North America. The grounding of planes means equipment and cargo are not where they are supposed to be. It could take days or even weeks to fully resolve.
Pete Buttigieg, US Secretary of Transportation, told CNBC this morning that ripple effects could be experienced as networks go back to normal with most delays happening to airlines since flights run so tightly.
Ports and Rails Report Minor Issues
Most rails and ports were only minorly affected with most major freight operators resorting to backup communications systems in place. IT outages have the potential to cause significant disruptions at ports if ships can’t load and offload containers.
The Port of Los Angeles, the largest port in the US, reported that one of its terminals was down temporarily but all systems were back this morning. The Port of Houston, a smaller, but significant US port reported major outages overnight but said that all systems are up and running. The Port of New York and New Jersey reported a delay in the opening of two of its terminals but issues were quickly rectified and back up and running. The Ports of Savannah and Virginia were not affected because they do not use CrowdStrike software.
Tech Outage Comes Amidst Other Strains
The global supply chain has been under immense pressure due to several factors including post-pandemic new norms, labor shortages, geopolitical tensions and economic instabilities,” said Tom Peacock, Worldwide Logistics’President. “The outage is another monkey wrench in supply chain management,” he added.
Contingency Planning and Communications
The CrowdStrike outage has highlighted the vulnerabilities in the global supply chain, a reminder of how vulnerable ocean and air supply chains are to IT failure. For Worldwide Logistics Group and its customers, the outage underscores the importance of contingency planning.
Contact your Worldwide Logistics Group representative for more details.