On July 20, Caixin reported that the global digital system experienced the largest scale of outage in history, caused by the security software bug of CrowdStrike, an American cyber security company, which crashed the Microsoft Windows system. In addition to causing major impacts such as trading interruptions and flight cancellations, the global supply chain has also suffered a "severe blow".

Logistics experts say that this incident has caused interruptions at American and global ports, and the highly complex aviation system has suffered the most severe impact, and air transportation may take several weeks to return to normal.

Niall van de Wouw, Chief Air Cargo Officer at supply chain consultancy Xeneta, said in a statement: "Planes and cargo aren't where they're supposed to be, and it will take days, even weeks, to sort out completely. This reminds us of how vulnerable our ocean and air freight supply chains are to IT failure."

It is estimated that thousands of flights have been grounded or delayed at the world's largest air cargo hubs in Europe, Asia and North America.

According to reports, the three largest US airlines, United Airlines, American Airlines, and Delta Air Lines, have issued ground stop orders for all flights. American low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines was forced to suspend flights for more than two hours, and Sun Country Airlines said a third-party supplier had affected its booking and check-in facilities.

It is worth noting that the new problems faced by the global supply chain are emerging at a time of rising global demand. Shipments in June increased by 13% year-on-year. According to Xeneta, the supply of air cargo has increased, but it has only grown by 3% year-on-year, and the limited capacity has led to increased costs for shippers.

Delays are common.

US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Friday that as the problem is identified, the government is focusing on the "chain reactions or cascade effects that occur when they get the network back to normal."

"These systems, these flights, are so tightly operated, so back-to-back, that you feel these effects all day even after the root cause has been resolved," he said.

In addition, two logistics giants have issued warnings of delivery delays. FedEx said in a statement that it has activated contingency plans, but added that "parcel delivery may experience delays on Friday".

UPS also said in a statement that computer systems in the US and Europe were affected, but related airlines were still operating effectively and drivers were on the road delivering goods to customers. The statement said, "We will continue to work to resolve all issues as quickly as possible, and there may be some service delays."

In addition to air transportation, sea transportation has also been greatly affected. Although the duration of the port shutdown was short, experts pointed out that small problems at ports could turn into big problems.

Emily Stausbøll, Senior Shipping Analyst at Xeneta, said that if ships were unable to load or unload containers, IT outages could cause serious damage to ports and could have chain effects on the supply chain; if truck and railroad services were unable to load or unload goods at ports, the inland supply chain would also be affected by chain effects.

He cited the example of the Charleston port on the US East Coast, which was forced to close for two days in May due to a software failure, increasing congestion at the port by 200%. Maritime intelligence company Kpler also said early signs indicated that the global IT outage had affected port operations around the world.