Banks, airlines, supermarkets, and rail companies in most parts of the world have been severely affected by a global IT outage connected to Microsoft devices, the tech giant has revealed, saying it is working to resolve the issue.

Flights have been grounded in several countries, and both rail and air companies in the UK and USA are reporting “widespread IT issues.”

American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and Allegiant Air grounded flights less than an hour after Microsoft said it resolved its cloud services outage that impacted several low-cost carriers.

Big media corporations like Sky News are off-air as at press time while Ryanair and Edinburgh Airport have alerted their passengers about potential disruptions across its network due to the third-party system outage.

In a statement, Ryanair said: “Potential disruptions across the network (Fri 19 July) due to a global 3rd party system outage. Affected passengers will be notified and any passengers travelling across the network on Fri 19 July should check their Ryanair app for the latest updates on their flight. We advise passengers to arrive at the airport 3 hours in advance of their flight to avoid any disruptions. We regret any inconvenience caused to passengers by this 3rd party IT issue, which is outside of Ryanair’s control and affects all airlines operating across the network.”

Edinburgh Airport has also warned passengers of longer wait times due to the outage, which has caused its departure board to freeze.

The airport said: “An IT system outage means wait times are longer than usual at the airport. This outage is affecting many other businesses, including airports. Work is ongoing to resolve this and our teams are on hand to assist where we can. Passengers are thanked for their patience.”