Travel at Albany International Airport is beginning to return to normal after a global internet outage caused dozens of flights to be delayed or canceled.

Hundreds of travelers were unable to board their flights because of a technical glitch. Cybersecurity company Crowdstrike said the problem stems from a defect found in a Microsoft Windows update. It is not a cyberattack.

Passengers who spoke to NewsChannel 13’s Dan Levy were frustrated. Their main problem was they were not able to communicate with their airlines.

“This is definitely an unprecedented situation,” airport spokesman Steve Smith said.

“I think, even without the construction, it would be very congested,” he said. “It’s not often that you have that many passengers in the ticketing area trying to reschedule their flights or figure out what’s going on.”

He said it is not often that there would be that many passengers in the ticketing area.

People at Albany International Airport are trying to maintain their sanity.

“This is a major screwup, you know, to have computers controlling our lives so thoroughly. It’s just absolutely amazing that, you know, you’re depending on the computer so much,” Bob Reiss, a traveler from Georgia, said. 

Nationwide, there were more than 2,400 flight cancellations Friday, and more than 7,600 delays of 3 p.m.

Reporter Caitlin Irla spoke with one woman who arrived at the airport around 3 a.m. for a flight with her two daughters to Washington DC. The flight was delayed multiple times before being cancelled entirely.

One traveler said have been delayed for weather or staffing shortages before, so she is trying to wait it out. She does the ability to go home if needed.

Nicholas Rabideau was trying to get to Chicago for a friend’s bachelor party.

“I got here at about 5 a.m., and I’ve been waiting ever since. They’ve been giving us updates once in awhile. The app tells me it keeps getting delayed every 30 minutes. It’s just kind of prolonging it,” he said.

Rabideau said it is a serious technology infrastructure problem.

“It’s a whole Microsoft thing. It’s giving errors on everything, like the blue screen of death is what they call it essentially — just shutting down everything. It’s kinda problematic honestly. The implications are kind of insane.”

Some people are trying to rent cars at the airport to get to their destination. However, they are running short.

Flight status can be checked on the Albany International Airport website.