Many travelers at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport had a frustrating and chaotic morning as a consequence of a global technology outage that has affected travel, closed Maryland courts and sent some local hospitals back to using pen and paper for some operations.

At the heart of the massive disruption is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that provides software to scores of companies worldwide. The company says the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows, and that the issue behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.

CrowdStrike has said a fix is on the way. Still, disarray continued hours after the problem was first detected. While multiple sectors across the country are seeing consequences, airports are among the most visible because of the long lines of travelers affected.

Major airlines including United, American, Delta and Allegiant were grounded because of the outage. Long lines snaked around BWI Friday morning as travelers waited for updates on their flights.

Southwest Airlines, which accounts for the vast majority of traffic at BWI, appeared to be unaffected Friday morning, according to a spokesperson for the airport.

John Thompson was on a 6 a.m. Spirit Airlines flight when the crew announced they were not sure when they would be able to take off. Although staff warned him if he got off he might not be able to get back on, he decided to get off the plane to use the restroom. On his way back, he realized the flight had left and he would be stuck in line with crowds of people attempting to rebook flights. Hours later, he was waiting by the Spirit counter hoping to get put on another flight.

”I’m pissed,” Thompson said about how long it was taking to rebook, adding that it didn’t seem like Spirit Airlines was prepared for an emergency.

Spirit Airlines agents were seen manually writing boarding passes for travelers. Around 11 a.m., one Spirit agent said the system was coming “in and out,” with some tickets being written by hand and others being printed.

BWI officials, meanwhile, did not immediately know the total number of flights canceled or rescheduled, or how many travelers were affected.

Nationally, more than 2,600 flights were canceled and more than 9,300 flights were delayed, according to FlightAware.com.

State officials, including Gov. Wes Moore, urged anyone with travel plans Friday to check with their specific airlines for the status of their flights before heading to the airport. Security checkpoints remained operational Friday morning, as did airport administration systems.

Airport staff distributed water, coffee and snacks to travelers, many of whom had been at BWI for hours. The Maryland Transportation Authority Police and BWI Fire and Rescue Department are at the airport, in case of any passenger emergencies, according to the Maryland Department of Transportation.

The areas outside of concourses D and E at BWI were most affected by the crowds and outages. The other concourses at the airport were seeing close to normal operations, according to a BWI spokesperson.

Inside the airport, but before security checkpoints, travelers in line for multiple airlines lamented their luck.

Joanne and Robert Camara were set to fly home to Los Angeles to finish the paperwork to purchase their dream retirement home on a lake in Virginia, but were caught in travel purgatory from delays and cancellations that started before the outage — the latest a canceled flight Thursday night because of staffing issues.

They slept in the terminal Thursday, and found themselves caught in the global IT outage Friday morning.

Jennifer Wang, a San Jose, California, resident, said she’d been waiting with her husband and two young girls since 8 a.m. to board their flight home after spending a week showing their kids around Washington, D.C.

“It was all great until this morning,” she said.

The Johnson family had plans to be in Orlando by 10 a.m. Friday, but not everyone made it. The 16-person family vacation got off to a rocky start as only some of their group was able to fly out of BWI.

The other part of the family was supposed to leave around 6 a.m. Friday, but they got caught in the outage.

Their original flight was canceled, the family said, and they had not heard any news on a rebooked flight.

“We could lose a whole day of the Airbnb,” Earnest Johnson said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.