McDonald's apologises after worldwide IT outage leaves customers unable to order food

ITV News Reporter Lewis Warner reports live from McDonald's after customers were left unable to order food from the fast-food giant following an IT outage

The IT outage that left McDonald’s customers unable to order food in several countries across the world has been fixed in the UK, a spokesperson has said.

On Friday morning, customers in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Japan complained about issues trying to buy from the fast food giant on social media.

In the UK, a number of customers said on social media that their local restaurants were closed although they were able to make orders through the company’s app.

By 11am the outage was fixed in the UK a McDonald's spokeswoman confirmed.

She said: "We are aware of a technology outage which impacted our restaurants.

“The issue has now been resolved in the UK and Ireland. We thank customers for their patience and apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.

“The issue is not related to a cybersecurity event.”

McDonald's executives confirmed that the outage was felt globally, with a number of markets are still being worked upon to bring them back online.

Brian Rice, chief information officer said: "What happened today has been an exception to the norm, and we are working with absolute urgency to resolve it. Thank you for your patience, and we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this has caused."

Luke Brett, 34, from Surrey, said he was travelling to Poole, Dorset and stopped at the McDonalds located in the Wessex Gate Retail Park to get a breakfast wrap and a drink but was unable to place his order.

He said: "There was a notice on the door saying the systems are down and all the screens were blank and I was trying to order a breakfast wrap.

“(The restaurant) was open but I was turned away by the staff inside who said the IT systems were down.”

It is understood that McDonald’s sites in some other countries are still being disrupted by the outage.

In Japan, the company apologised to customers on social media and said they may need to "wait a while" for problems to be resolved.

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