Major IT outage hits banks, airlines and train services globally

Planes have been grounded and train services have warned of cancellations

American Airlines, United and Delta have all issued a global ground stop on all their flights. This means no further flights from these airlines will take off.

In the UK, Ryanair has said it is experiencing "potential disruptions across the network" because of a third party outage. The airline is advising anyone travelling with them today to check the Ryanair app for updates on their flight.

The London Stock Exchange group’s platform has also hit by outages whilst the BBC reports that the departure boards at Edinburgh airport have frozen.

Sky News has also gone off air due to the outages, and has been unable to broadcast any live coverage on Friday morning.

The CBBC channel also appears to have gone off air.

In a post on X, Sky's executive chairman David Rhodes said: "Sky News have not been able to broadcast live TV this morning, currently telling viewers that we apologise for the interruption. Much of our news report is still available online, and we are working hard to restore all services."

Meanwhile, train services in the UK have warned passengers to expect disruption due to "widespread IT issues."

In a posts on social media, Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern all wrote: "We are currently experiencing widespread IT issues across our entire network.

"Our IT teams are actively investigating to determine the root cause of the problem.

"We are unable to access driver diagrams at certain locations, leading to potential short-notice cancellations, particularly on the Thameslink and Great Northern networks.

"Additionally, other key systems, including our real-time customer information platforms, are also affected.

"We will provide additional updates when we can. In the meantime, please regularly check your journey before you travel."

Meanwhile Microsoft has said it is taking "mitigation actions" after being hit by issues, according to AFP.

The company says it is investigating issues with its cloud services, and that several of its apps and services have been hit by an issue.

More to follow