Turkish Airlines, Türkiye's national flag carrier, announced on Friday that it had canceled 84 flights after a massive global technology outage wreaked havoc on computer systems worldwide.
The technical glitch grounded flights in the United States, derailed television broadcasts in the U.K. and impacted telecommunications in Australia.
"In order to avoid any disruption, some flights will be canceled, and our flights will gradually return to normal as soon as possible," Yahya Üstun of Turkish Airlines announced on social media platform X.
Most of the Turkish flagship carrier's canceled flights were domestic and to and from Europe.
"We are working to reduce our operational intensity to solve the software-related problem that affects many companies from different sectors around the world," Üstun said.
In a post on X, the carrier cited a technical problem at a supplier that provides services globally and affects various sectors, including the aviation industry.
Flights will gradually return to normal as soon as possible, it stressed.
"We are currently experiencing problems with ticketing, check-in, and reservation processes," it said.
Global connections could be affected, also due to air space closures in some countries, its spokesperson told Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) over the phone.
The government expects domestic system disruptions to end "within a few hours," Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu told reporters in the western province of Tekirdağ, rejecting any "cyberattack" claims.
Türkiye's Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) also said in a statement the disruption was not caused by a cyberattack.
"The disruption occurred in institutions and organizations using the CrowdStrike product," it added.
The global interruption in devices running the Windows operating system was attributed to a software update issued by CrowdStrike, a U.S.-based cybersecurity firm.
"CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts," CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on X.
Meanwhile, DenizBank, a private bank based in Türkiye and owned by Emirates NBD, also reported disruption in operations, saying on X it is working to "put all our channels into service as soon as possible."
