Emirates Pokes Fun At US’ Aviation Disaster From Ground Stop & Microsoft Outage

Published Nov 14, 2026, 3:10 PM EST Journalist – Aaron is an aviation and travel journalist with 14 years of experience in the travel and tourism industry. His background spans airport operations, aviation infrastructure, and travel consulting, having worked with global organizations across New Zealand, Europe, and North America. Combining industry expertise with firsthand travel experience across more than 52 countries and five continents, Aaron covers airlines, airports, aviation policy, and the wider travel sector. He is based in Canterbury, New Zealand. His work has been published in Simple Flying and featured by MSN, SAM CHUI Aviation & Travel, EIN News, Pakistan Defence, and Climate Depot. Dubai-based Emirates has taken a poke at the US aviation disaster that unfolded this week, posting on its social media channels that 'the skies are always open'. The original post, which included a lighthearted nod to the Microsoft Outlook and cloud outage, was then followed up with a 'was it something we said?' This comes as, on Friday, a rare nationwide ground stop was issued by the US Federal Aviation Administration after a L3Harris router malfunction stopped the FAA's air traffic control network in its tracks, forcing thousands of aircraft to be grounded and no flights could depart to, from, or within the US. Post On X Has Racked Up More Than Half A Million Views Credit: Aleksandra Tokarz | Shutterstock The post, shared on X, has racked up a total of 613,000 views at the time of writing, and continues to increase. The Middle Eastern airline has shared this across other social media channels, but has only reached 2,400 likes on Facebook. Due to the four-hour delay in flight operations in the US, this had a ripple effect on airlines around the world, grounding any US-bound services. This affected a number of Emirates services, from Dubai to destinations across America. While flights already airborne were permitted to land, those that were still at the gate were forced to wait until final clearance was provided for services to resume at 8:15 PM EST on Friday. Emirates services were able to eventually operate to the US, with a slight delay on some services. There were no blanket cancellations or major disruptions to US-bound services. In the US, thousands of flights have been cancelled across Friday and Saturday, with delays expected to linger for the coming days as local airlines return to normal operations while clearing the backlog of passengers. International Scheduled Flights Were Delayed Credit: Miguel Lagoa | Shutterstock Experienced by airlines around the globe, flight departures were marginally delayed until clearance was given for services to resume. This had no major impact on non-UAE flight operations, and neither Emirates nor neighboring Etihad or Qatar Airways saw any major displacement of aircraft or crew, unlike the thousands of cancelled flights and crew timeouts experienced in the US. Simple Flying reached out to Emirates for comment on the Microsoft Outage and Ground Stop on Saturday; however, an airline spokesperson could not immediately be reached. A ground stop of this magnitude in the US has not been experienced in more than a quarter of a century. The last time the FAA ordered a nationwide halt to all flight departures was briefly in January 2023, due to a malfunction in its Notice to Air Missions system. The last major ground stop was in 2001, following the September 11 terrorist attacks. The Skies Are Always Open With Emirates Credit: Rebius | Shutterstock 'Your email might be down, but the skies are always open ' was a light-hearted jab at the Microsoft Outlook and cloud outage that saw disruption to millions of users of Microsoft cloud-based services and software suites around the globe. This affected Microsoft 365, Outlook, Teams and Copilot users. The multi-region technical failure knocked out the key collaboration and email tools for its millions of users spanning 74 countries. Microsoft confirmed this was not a cyber attack, security breach, or AI malfunction, but instead stemming from a technical issue that was introduced during a network capacity upgrade. Services by Microsoft were fully restored later on Thursday, but left many in the lurch without access to these vital software systems. The global outage indirectly affected Emirates, as it disrupted the airline's corporate communications, internal office and email tools, while also hampering customer support channels, as confirmed by Gulf Business. Emirates is a large international airline that operates a robust network of international flights from its home at Dubai International Airport (DXB). The airline operates a fleet of the Airbus A350, A380, and Boeing 777. It is the world's largest operator of the A380 and 777, and handles more than 3,600 flights per week, in excess of 500 per day, to and from the Middle East, and several unique fifth-freedom routes.