Microsoft is gradually restoring its services after a major global outage disrupted Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Copilot, and other Microsoft 365 applications, leaving businesses, Government offices, airlines, and ordinary users struggling with communication and daily operations.
The disruption, which continued into a second day on Friday, affected users across 74 countries and territories, according to DownDetector. The outage exposed how heavily organisations and consumers depend on Microsoft’s digital services for everything from workplace communication to customer support and government operations.
Microsoft said it was seeing an encouraging recovery across several regions, with improved email delivery in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. However, some users could still face intermittent access problems and delayed messages as engineers work to restore the remaining affected infrastructure. The outage created challenges for businesses and institutions that rely on Outlook for routine communication.
In India, IndiGo reported disruptions to its email-based customer support services, affecting its ability to receive passenger enquiries. The airline clarified that its other support channels remained operational and flight operations were not affected.
Air India also confirmed that its flights continued normally. However, it temporarily redirected its email services to ensure that customer queries could still reach the airline without interruption.
The impact extended to Government institutions overseas. Singapore’s Government Technology Agency reported interruptions to Government email services and said it was working with Microsoft to resolve the problem.
In the Philippines, the Supreme Court said the Microsoft 365 outage had affected some of its operations, including email responses. Japanese officials also confirmed disruptions to Government IT infrastructure.
For office employees, the outage made it difficult to send reports, receive important documents and secure approvals. Such interruptions can delay routine decisions, affect coordination between departments and create uncertainty for customers waiting for responses.
The disruption extended beyond Microsoft’s own applications. Artificial intelligence companies OpenAI and Anthropic reported problems connecting with Microsoft 365 tools.
Hong Kong-based aluminium businessperson Danny Lau said his company could not receive updates from US customers through Outlook, raising concerns about possible delays to production schedules.
US industrial technology company Workhorse Group also postponed a quarterly earnings conference call because of the outage.
Microsoft said it had not identified evidence of malicious activity behind the disruption. The company is using a phased approach to repair affected infrastructure, stabilise restored services and clear delayed email backlogs.
The incident has drawn comparisons with the 2024 CrowdStrike outage, which disrupted airlines, hospitals, banks and businesses worldwide following a faulty software update.
Although Microsoft has reported progress, the disruption highlights the vulnerability of organisations that depend on a single technology ecosystem.
For consumers, passengers, employees and businesses, the immediate concern is the restoration of reliable communication. Until services are fully stable, delayed emails and interrupted digital support could continue to affect everyday activities.