EDINBURGHLONDONSEOUL, July 19 Reuters Air passengers around the world faced delays, cancellations and problems checking in as airports and airlines were caught up in a massive IT outage that also affected industries ranging from banks to media companies.

In Edinburgh, a Reuters witness said boarding pass scanners carried a server offline message, with the airport saying passengers shouldn39;t travel to the airport without checking their flight status online first.

Elsewhere, airports and airlines advised customers to arrive earlier than normal for flights. Analysts said the outage was likely tied to a glitch in Microsoft software used globally.

Microsoft said users might be unable to access various Office 365 apps and services due to a configuration change in a portion of our Azurebacked workloads.

Hong Kong International Airport said a Microsoft outage was affecting several airlines and it had switched to manual checkin, but flight operations had not been affected.

Singapore39;s Changi airport also said checkins were being handled manually.

According to an alert sent by Crowdstrike to its clients and reviewed by Reuters, the company39;s Falcon Sensor software is causing Microsoft Windows to crash and display a blue screen, known informally as the Blue Screen of Death.

The alert, sent at 0530 GMT on Friday, also shared a manual workaround to rectify the issue. A Crowdstrike spokesperson did not respond to emails or calls requesting comment.

The aviation sector is…