Last week, a good chunk of the digital world shut down and stopped working due to an update that caused Microsoft’s Windows operating system to crash and display a blue screen on millions of devices. This affected places like hospitals, schools, and airports. But one airline, unlike the others, was spared from the chaos. And many are saying it’s because it’s still using an ancient operating system, but that’s not the case.
On July 19, millions of computers and other Windows-powered devices crashed and stopped working around the globe. It was later discovered that Crowdstrike, a large cybersecurity company, had pushed out an update that was borked and broke everything for hours. And as is common on the internet these days, people began joking about it and making up stories, some of which went viral. For example, a lot of people still think the Las Vegas Sphere crashed during the Crowdstrike event. (It didn’t.)
But perhaps the most viral claim, which was reported by multiple outlets and shared online as the truth, was that Southwest Airlines in the United States avoided all of the Crowdstrike chaos because its systems still run on Windows 3.1. This isn’t accurate, though Southwest Airlines does indeed use some older software that it should probably upgrade.
As pointed out by OS News, digging into this story reveals that a lot of places are citing a tweet that went viral claiming Southwest still uses Windows 3.1. This person later confirmed that they were trolling, but that didn’t stop the claim from spreading. Later, people discovered an article from 2023 that compares Southwest’s internal software with Windows 3.1, suggesting it is nearly as old. But it never says that Southwest is actually still using Windows 3.1.
Dig a little deeper and you can find a December 2022 article from The Dallas Morning News all about that time Southwest Airlines’ systems started melting down during the holidays. The article, and others since, lay the blame squarely on the airline’s aging software—SkySolver and Crew Web Access. In the article, it’s mentioned that these programs look like they were designed in Windows 95.
Since then, people have been spouting off the incorrect notion that Southwest is using Windows 95, which was then backed up by a viral tweet and some outlets running with the story.
But there appears to be no evidence that Southwest is actually still using Windows 3.1. Sure, the software they are using to plan flights and manage their employees looks old and has apparently been around since 2007 or so. That’s true, and scary. But no, Southwest didn’t avoid the Windows Crash because they use an operating system from 1992. As for why Southwest mostly avoided the chaos of July 19? Simple. They reportedly don’t use Crowdstrike.
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