by Last week, much of the digital world came to a standstill 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 any other, was spared from the chaos. And many say it’s because it’s still using an old operating system, but that’s not the case.
On July 19, millions of computers and other Windows devices crashed and stopped working all over the world. It was later discovered that Crowdstrike, a major cybersecurity company, had released an update that malfunctioned and broke everything for hours. And as is common on the internet these days, people started joking about it and making up stories, some of which went viral. For example, many people still believe that the Las Vegas Sphere crashed during the Crowdstrike event.This is not the case.)
But perhaps the most viral claim, which was reported by several media outlets and shared online as the truth, was that Southwest Airlines in the US avoided all the chaos of Crowdstrike because its systems are still running Windows 3.1. This is not accurate, although Southwest Airlines is indeed using older software that it should probably upgrade.
As pointed out OS News, Digging deeper into this story, we find that many places are quoting a tweet that went viral claiming that Southwest is still using Windows 3.1. This person later confirmed that they were trollingbut that didn’t stop the rumor from spreading. Later, people found out an article from 2023 which compares Southwest’s internal software with Windows 3.1, suggesting it is almost as old. But it Never said that the Southwest is In fact I’m still using Windows 3.1.
Dig a little deeper and you can find an article from December 2022 Since The Dallas Morning News It was around this time that Southwest Airlines’ systems began melting down during the holidays. The article, like others since, blames the problems on the airline’s aging software: SkySolver and Crew Web Access. The article notes that these programs appear to have been designed under Windows 95.
Since then, people have spread the misconception that Southwest uses Windows 95, which was later confirmed by a viral tweet and some media outlets picking up on the story.
But there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that Southwest is still using Windows 3.1. Sure, the software they use to schedule flights and manage their employees looks old and has apparently been around since around 2007. That’s true, and scary. But no, Southwest didn’t avoid the Windows crash because they’re using an operating system that dates back to 1992. As for why Southwest largely avoided the chaos of July 19th? Simple. Apparently they don’t use Crowdstrike.
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