--- title: "Microsoft declares end to the Outlook and Teams outage that hit users in 74 countries" description: "Outlook, Teams and Copilot went dark for more than 450 million commercial subscribers, and Microsoft's stock barely moved; the operating cost landed on parliaments, hospitals and airlines. A day later, aging FAA telecom grounded every US flight and put a $50 billion repair ask in front of Congress." publisher: "The Inference" section: "Applications" published: 2026-11-14T16:14:16.127Z modified: 2026-11-14T16:14:16.127Z canonical: https://theinference.org/article/microsoft-declares-end-to-the-outlook-and-teams-outage-that-hit-users-in-74-countries language: en keywords: "Microsoft, Microsoft 365, Outages, FAA, Cloud Computing" --- # Microsoft declares end to the Outlook and Teams outage that hit users in 74 countries > Outlook, Teams and Copilot went dark for more than 450 million commercial subscribers, and Microsoft's stock barely moved; the operating cost landed on parliaments, hospitals and airlines. A day later, aging FAA telecom grounded every US flight and put a $50 billion repair ask in front of Congress. ## Fax machines ran while Outlook sat dark Foreign banks in Taipei went back to fax machines to reach overseas headquarters. Britain's National Health Service returned to paper records, and Euronext, the European exchange operator, told listed companies to phone in their trades [1]. Norway's parliament lost email, and 80 to 90 Danish municipalities were reportedly hit [1]. ## One vendor, 74 countries, 7.4 million reports The failed plumbing belonged to one vendor: [Microsoft](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/microsoft)'s Outlook, Teams and Copilot, its AI assistant, with more than 450 million commercial subscribers and users hit in 74 countries, a concentration customers price at every renewal [1]. It broke with Exchange Online, the email service, at about 11:17 a.m [2][1]. Eastern on Thursday, November 12 [2]; Microsoft declared full recovery on Saturday, November 14 [1]. Downdetector, an outage-tracking site, [logged more than 7.4 million reports](https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-365-outage-resolved/), a report count, not a user count [2]. For the whole outage, institutions ran on channels that predate the cloud. ## Microsoft's own upgrade did the damage The company's account: an earlier network capacity upgrade surfaced after a later network change, backend servers became unavailable, and restarts failed under returning traffic [2]. "This was a technical issue not related to cyber or AI/agents," Microsoft said, promising [a full post-incident report](https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-365-crawls-back-to-life-after-a-24-hour-outage/) [3]. It was the second Microsoft service disruption of 2026 [1]. The stock closed Friday mostly flat on a slightly lower Nasdaq, at a value above $3.8 trillion [1]. The operating losses sat with customers: hospitals [3], rail operators across Germany, Britain and Canada [1], airlines that lost touch with passengers [3], and the US House of Representatives [1]. The Pentagon sits on the same rail, under a $9.7 billion deal that includes Microsoft 365 [1]. ## The next day, the sky closed too On Friday afternoon the Federal Aviation Administration halted every US departure at 3:54 p.m [4][5][6]. Eastern [4] and lifted the stop at 8:15 p.m., the longest nationwide grounding since September 11, 2001, and two weeks before Thanksgiving [5][6]. More than 7,000 flights were canceled before the stop lifted, and more than 3,600 more fell by Saturday morning [4][5]. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed 1980s copper lines and aging switches overloaded as new equipment went in; the new IP switches held, he said [7]. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin ruled out any Microsoft connection and cited "zero evidence" of a cyberattack, though nothing was "completely certain" [7]. ## The blame lands on routers built between 2001 and 2006 CBS News, cited by Yahoo News, reported [the FAA's preliminary investigation](https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/live/faa-ground-stop-latest-updates-thousands-more-flights-canceled-saturday-officials-blame-overloaded-routers-no-sign-of-cyberattack-140904919.html) points to [Cisco](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/cisco) 600-series routers built between 2001 and 2006, on a private network run by [L3Harris](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/l3harris) [5]. A Transportation Department rule that took effect on October 19 puts "government system failures" outside airline control, so stranded passengers are owed a refund only if they give up the trip [5]. ## The $50 billion question in Congress Duffy ruled out SMART, the FAA's AI traffic planner, held under a 12-year, [$875 million contract with Boston-based Air Space Intelligence](https://theinference.org/article/the-faa-switched-on-875m-of-ai-and-24-hours-later-asked-for-30b-more) [7]. Mullin said President Trump had declared the situation a national emergency, and Duffy asked Congress for $50 billion on top of the $12.5 billion already approved over five years [7][4]. [AT&T](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/at-and-t) holds the FAA telecom lead on an initial $74.3 million award from August, targeted to finish by the end of 2028 [7]. *Chart: **A $50 billion ask next to a $74 million first invoice** Bar chart of US air traffic control modernization dollars, in billions: a $50 billion ask from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a $30.1 billion administration request, $12.5 billion approved by Congress over five years, and a $74.3 million initial AT&T telecom award.* *Requested, approved and contracted dollars for US air traffic control modernization, in billions of dollars. The $12.5 billion Congress approved is spread over five years. Sources: GeekWire, November 13, 2026, and NBC News, November 14, 2026. [4][7]* Without the money, Duffy warned, "you will have more of them" [5]. Microsoft said Friday that "we know the trust they place in our services" [8]; customers are owed the post-incident report [3]. Two outages in one year hand rivals a redundancy argument at renewal time, and a flat stock suggests the market has not priced the next one. ## Takeaway A 24-hour Microsoft 365 outage put banks, hospitals and parliaments back on fax, paper and phone, and Microsoft's stock barely moved. The FAA ground stop that followed put a $50 billion repair bill in front of Congress. ## Sources 1. [Al Jazeera and Reuters, "Microsoft says affected services fully recovered following worldwide outage," 13 November 2026, updated 14 November 2026](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/13/microsoft-says-services-still-returning-amid-widespread-outage) 2. [Digital Trends, "Microsoft's longest outage in years is finally over. Here's what went wrong," 14 November 2026](https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-365-outage-resolved/) 3. [WIRED, "Microsoft 365 Crawls Back to Life After a 24-Hour Outage," collected 14 November 2026](https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-365-crawls-back-to-life-after-a-24-hour-outage/) 4. [NBC News, "FAA lifts ground stop hours after stranding thousands of flights across the U.S.," 13 November 2026, updated 14 November 2026](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/faa-orders-nationwide-ground-stop-departing-flights-reasons-safety-rcna609247) 5. [Yahoo News, "FAA ground stop latest updates: Thousands more flights canceled Saturday; officials blame overloaded routers; no sign of cyberattack," 14 November 2026](https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/live/faa-ground-stop-latest-updates-thousands-more-flights-canceled-saturday-officials-blame-overloaded-routers-no-sign-of-cyberattack-140904919.html) 6. [Northeastern Global News, "Tech issue grounds all U.S. flights day after global Microsoft outage," 13 November 2026](https://news.northeastern.edu/2026/11/13/faa-ground-stop-telecommunications-issue/) 7. [GeekWire, "Officials blame aging FAA telecom gear as U.S. airspace reopens, see no link to Microsoft or AI," 13 November 2026](https://www.geekwire.com/2026/dhs-chief-sees-no-microsoft-link-to-faa-ground-stop-says-possible-ai-role-being-investigated/) 8. [CRN, "Microsoft 365 Outage: 5 Things We Know And Don't Know," 13 November 2026](https://www.crn.com/news/ai/2026/microsoft-365-outage-5-things-we-know-and-don-t-know) --- Microsoft declares end to the Outlook and Teams outage that hit users in 74 countries — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/microsoft-declares-end-to-the-outlook-and-teams-outage-that-hit-users-in-74-countries