A major global outage affecting Microsoft’s services has disrupted businesses, government agencies and airline operations across multiple countries, as the technology giant struggles to restore its systems. The disruption, which began in North America on November 12, 2026, spread across the Asia-Pacific region, affecting services including Microsoft 365, Outlook, Teams and Copilot.
The outage continued into November 13, with Microsoft’s initial recovery efforts failing to deliver sustained improvements. Several organisations reported difficulties accessing email systems, managing customer communications and carrying out routine digital operations.
Government systems affected across countries
The disruption has affected government agencies in Australia, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines and New Zealand.
In Australia, the country’s intelligence agency and federal police reported operational disruptions. Japan confirmed that its shared government IT infrastructure was affected, with several departments experiencing problems accessing Outlook and other digital services.
Singapore’s Government Technology Agency reported disruptions to government systems and email services. The Philippines’ Supreme Court also warned that email responses and certain transactions could face delays.
In New Zealand, Immigration New Zealand temporarily paused visa application processing because of the disruption.
The impact has highlighted the dependence of public institutions on cloud-based platforms for everyday administration and communication.
Airlines report customer service disruptions
Airlines across several markets have also reported problems with their email and customer support systems.
In India, IndiGo said its email support services were affected and advised passengers to use its AI-powered assistant, 6E Skai, through its website or mobile application for urgent assistance.
Akasa Air also reported delays in email support and directed passengers to its 24-hour customer care centre and social media channels.
Air India, however, said its flight operations remained unaffected. The airline temporarily rerouted its email services to ensure customer messages continued to reach its teams.
South African airline CemAir also reported system disruptions and advised passengers to contact its support teams through phone or live chat.
Financial institutions and technology companies affected
The outage has extended beyond government and aviation services, affecting financial institutions and technology companies.
Financial firms in Taiwan reported disruptions to fund management, trading communications and transaction processing. Some employees reportedly had to rely on phone calls, messaging applications and even fax machines to communicate.
US-based AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic also reported problems with Microsoft connectors, highlighting how disruptions in one major cloud ecosystem can affect services built on top of it.
The impact on businesses has raised concerns about the operational risks associated with heavy dependence on a single technology provider.
Why did Microsoft services go down?
Microsoft attributed the disruption to server-related problems. A core process responsible for establishing secure connections on affected servers became overwhelmed, causing some systems to stop responding.
The resulting loss of server capacity placed additional pressure on the remaining infrastructure, creating further service disruptions.
Microsoft said it had not found evidence of malicious activity or a cyberattack behind the incident.
The company attempted to restore affected servers, redirect traffic and redistribute workloads. However, its initial adjustments produced only partial recovery, rather than a sustained return to normal service.
Repeated outages raise reliability concerns
The latest disruption is the second major Microsoft 365 outage in 2026, following another incident in January. It also comes after an Azure cloud disruption in October 2026 that affected Microsoft’s productivity services and businesses worldwide.
The repeated incidents are raising questions about the reliability of cloud-based business infrastructure and the risks of depending heavily on a single provider.
While Microsoft continues its recovery efforts, the outage has demonstrated how technical problems at a major technology company can disrupt airlines, financial institutions, government agencies and businesses across multiple countries.
