Amazon Web Services outage impacts major US airlines

Several major airline websites, including Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, faced disruptions on Monday after an outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) affected online services across industries. Passengers reported being unable to check in, view reservations, or access seat assignments during the outage.

According to Amazon, the issue began early Monday in its US-EAST-1 region. By 5:27 a.m. ET, the company said, “We are seeing significant signs of recovery. Most requests should now be succeeding. We continue to work through a backlog of queued requests. We will continue to provide additional information.”

Amazon earlier confirmed “increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS services in the US-EAST-1 Region” on its service dashboard. The airlines did not immediately comment on the incident.


During the disruption, some users took to social media to report missing reservations or difficulties in checking in and dropping off bags. While systems gradually returned online, recovery was not immediate for all users.

This latest outage follows a major cloud-related disruption in July 2024, when a faulty software update caused widespread system failures worldwide. That incident forced Delta to cancel over 5,000 flights and resulted in losses exceeding $500 million, including revenue impact and passenger compensation.

As services stabilize, Amazon said it continues to monitor recovery efforts and address remaining backlogs.

Airline websites among first hit
Airline websites and mobile apps were among the most visible casualties of the outage. Some passengers reported missing seat assignments and were unable to check in or access flight details. Both Delta and United’s websites showed intermittent disruptions for several hours. The airlines have not yet issued formal statements.

The issue recalls the July 2024 global software malfunction, which crippled multiple industries and forced Delta to cancel more than 5,000 flights, costing the airline over $500 million in losses and compensation.

Wider impact on global apps and services
The disruption extended far beyond the aviation sector. According to outage-tracking platform Downdetector, several popular applications — including Fortnite, Roblox, Snapchat, Clash Royale, and Clash of Clans — were affected. Financial and trading platforms like Coinbase, Venmo, and Chime also reported interruptions, while Robinhood experienced connectivity problems.

AI startup Perplexity, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, and trading app Robinhood all attributed their issues to AWS. “Perplexity is down right now. The root cause is an AWS issue. We’re working on resolving it,” said Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas on X.

Amazon’s retail website, Prime Video, and Alexa also faced temporary disruptions. In the UK, services of Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland, Vodafone, BT, and the HMRC website were impacted, according to Downdetector’s UK tracker.

Messaging platform Signal confirmed the outage on its end as well. Its president, Meredith Whittaker, said on X that AWS downtime had affected the app’s operations.