Windows outage closed two terminals at Rotterdam port; Some regional buses affected

Two terminals at the port of Rotterdam were closed on Friday due to the Crowdstrike bug that crashed Windows computers worldwide. The malfunction makes loading and unloading impossible at the ECT Euromax and ECT Delta. The outage also impacted buses in the province of Utrecht, Amersfoort, and Almere.

Crowdstrike announced at around noon that it was implementing a fix, but it would take time for impacted companies to restart their processes and catch up.

“Our systems are down, so the operation is at a standstill,” a spokesperson for the transshipment company ECT Rotterdam told NOS. “We don’t know how long it will last. The processes have been delayed.” There were several ships at the quay that could not be unloaded and loaded due to the delay.

Other companies in the port were also impacted by the outage, but the port itself experienced no further problems, a spokesperson said. “Crucial processes in the port are all continuing.”

Regional public transport company Keolis was impacted by the outage, halting buses in the province of Utrecht, Amersfoort, and Almere. It runs Syntos and AllGo buses there. The buses themselves are fine, but the drivers cannot contact the emergency services due to the computer outage.

“We want to guarantee safety on the road, which is why we decided not to run the buses. We have been able to set up an emergency connection for our trains, so they are running.” Bus traffic restarted again around 2:00 p.m.

The NS was not impacted by the outage. Public transport also ran as usual in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

Several airlines at Schiphol were impacted, and the results were chaotic. Every flight at the airport on Friday was delayed or canceled.