New York – LUMA Energy, a foreign consortium responsible for the transmission and distribution of electric power in Puerto Rico, reported that the computer failure that affected the Microsoft system and impacted airlines and flights in the United States this Friday, as well as other entities around the world, has also affected its operations on the island.
“LUMA customers: Our contact center operations have been impacted by issues with one of our global service providers,” reads a message shared by the company on its Facebook account.
The company asked subscribers of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) to use the web or mobile application to carry out procedures or report service interruptions.
“Remember to use the MiLUMA web or mobile app to report outages, pay your bill, and request services at any time. We will provide updates as we have more information,” the post on the social network concludes.
Over the past few weeks, LUMA has had to respond to questions about massive blackouts, particularly in the southern part of the island. The situation has forced the company to make multiple efforts, which have not been effective so far, to change a transformer at the Useras substation in the municipality of Santa Isabel.
Puerto Rico Police also report problems with their services
LUMA is not the only entity facing complications in providing its services on the island.
The Commissioner of the Puerto Rico Police Bureau, Antonio López Figueroa, reported that as a result of the failure, problems are being registered in the procedures to issue certificates of criminal records or certificates of good conduct, as well as copies of complaints that are processed by the Police Reports Office and the Private Security License Issuance Division Office.
“As this is a failure caused by a technological tool with a global impact, we cannot establish at this time when these services will be resumed. Once the situation has been corrected, we will inform the public again,” López Figueroa said in a statement.
The computer failure this morning has affected services globally, particularly in airlines, banks and hospitals.
Impacts on flights in Puerto Rico
In terms of air traffic, nearly 4,500 flights to and from the United States have been delayed, and some 1,700 have been cancelled due to the massive blackout. A report by Efe shortly before noon today referring to the FlightAware air monitoring platform estimates some 27,075 flight delays worldwide; 4,473 of these impact passengers to and from the US.
Additionally, they shared the figure of 2,819 flights cancelled globally. It should be noted that these numbers are constantly changing.
Shortly before 8 a.m., U.S. airlines including Delta and American Airlines began resuming flights following the disruption.
In Puerto Rico, Aerostar Airport Holdings, the private operator of Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (SJU), reported at around 9 a.m. that several airlines with operations in this area are battling delays and cancellations at their flight agents.
“At this time, the affected airlines are American Airlines, United, Spirit and Delta. These reflect delays in departure and arrival. The domino effect on the entire flight circuit, across different destinations, should have an impact throughout the day,” Aerostar said in a written statement.
Aerostar added that not all airlines use the same system and that companies such as Southwest, JetBlue and Frontier were operating normally.
In a subsequent update, which El Nuevo Día refers to, the company estimated that around 33 flights were affected. Among these are some Frontier flights.
The widespread failure was due to a faulty update through the CrowdStrike cybersecurity tool. That update caused blue screens to appear on Windows systems.
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