No, Southwest Airways Is not Utilizing Home windows 3.1 In 2024

Final week, an excellent chunk of the digital world shut down and stopped working on account of an replace that brought about Microsoft’s Home windows working system to crash and show a blue display on hundreds of thousands of gadgets. This affected locations like hospitals, colleges, and airports. However one airline, not like the others, was spared from the chaos. And plenty of are saying it’s as a result of it’s nonetheless utilizing an historical working system, however that’s not the case.

On July 19, hundreds of thousands of computer systems and different Home windows-powered gadgets crashed and stopped working across the globe. It was later found that Crowdstrike, a big cybersecurity firm, had pushed out an replace that was borked and broke all the things for hours. And as is frequent on the web lately, individuals started joking about it and making up tales, a few of which went viral. For instance, lots of people nonetheless assume the Las Vegas Sphere crashed through the Crowdstrike occasion. (It didn’t.)

However maybe essentially the most viral declare, which was reported by a number of shops and shared on-line as the reality, was that Southwest Airways in america averted all the Crowdstrike chaos as a result of its programs nonetheless run on Home windows 3.1. This isn’t correct, although Southwest Airways does certainly use some older software program that it ought to in all probability improve.

As identified by OS Information, digging into this story reveals that numerous locations are citing a tweet that went viral claiming Southwest nonetheless makes use of Home windows 3.1. This particular person later confirmed that they have been trolling, however that didn’t cease the declare from spreading. Later, individuals found an article from 2023 that compares Southwest’s inner software program with Home windows 3.1, suggesting it’s practically as previous. Nevertheless it by no means says that Southwest is really nonetheless utilizing Home windows 3.1.

Dig just a little deeper and also you can discover a December 2022 article from The Dallas Morning Information all about that point Southwest Airways’ programs began melting down through the holidays. The article, and others since, lay the blame squarely on the airline’s getting older software program—SkySolver and Crew Net Entry. Within the article, it’s talked about that these packages appear like they have been designed in Home windows 95.

Since then, individuals have been spouting off the inaccurate notion that Southwest is utilizing Home windows 95, which was then backed up by a viral tweet and a few shops operating with the story.

However there seems to be no proof that Southwest is definitely nonetheless utilizing Home windows 3.1. Certain, the software program they’re utilizing to plan flights and handle their workers appears to be like previous and has apparently been round since 2007 or so. That’s true, and scary. However no, Southwest didn’t keep away from the Home windows Crash as a result of they use an working system from 1992. As for why Southwest principally averted the chaos of July 19? Easy. They reportedly don’t use Crowdstrike. 

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