Were you planning to catch a flight today? You could face significant delays as Tiger, Virgin, Jetstar and Rex battle technical issues with their computerised check-in systems. Qantas appears unaffected, but for the other airlines, they’ve been forced to process would-be flyers manually.
Virgin’s Twitter account posted the following at 11:36am today:
Virgin Australia is currently experiencing an IT outage that is affecting check in processes at airports. We apologise for delays.
It soon became clear that Virgin wasn’t the only airline suffering computer problems, as this article on The Age details. It states that Jetstar’s systems began resurrecting themselves from 11:45am onwards, but there’s no mention what state the other three airlines are in. Even if services are restored, it will likely take time to sort out the mess.
All four are apparently heaping blame onto Navitaire, which provides the airlines with their check-in software.
Another story over at News.com.au suggests the fault has delayed some flights by up to three hours, with Jetstar saying delays of two hours or more should be expected.
If you’ve been affected, please hit up the comments and let us know how you’re fairing. We’ll update this story as we get more information.
Update: Accenture, which supplies the airlines with Navitaire, has issued the following statement:
A power failure occurred in a third party data centre in Sydney which impacted the Navitaire reservation systems. We are working closely with all impacted clients to restore services as quickly as possible.
[via The Age and News.com.au]
Thanks Pru Q for the pic!