Thiruvananthapuram: Air India passengers left high and dry

Thiruvananthapuram: Thousands of Air India passengers around the world, including in Thiruvananthapuram, were stranded due to a glitch in its check-in software, the airline said on Saturday.

The passengers faced a tough time as the check-in software went down from 3.30 a.m. on Saturday. Air India’s passenger services system run by SITA was taken for maintenance and it remained down till 8.45 a.m. Though the system was restored, there were consequential delays.

Air India station manager S.B. S. Jacob told Deccan Chronicle that only three flights in the morning were affected by the snag. These were Thiruvananthapuram-Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram-Delhi and Thiruvananthapuram-Chennai flights. However, sources said that five international flights were affected. They were Thiruvananthapuram-Maldives, Maldives-Thiruvananthapuram, Thiruvananthapuram-Sharjah, Thiruvananthapuram-Muscat and Thiruvananthapuram- Abu dhabi flights.  

SITA, a global airlines IT services major, provides Air India’s check-in, boarding and baggage tracking technology.

The airline was unable to issue boarding passes to passengers at airports across the world since 3 a.m. Though the boarding passes were later issued manually, this caused severe delays resulting in verbal duels. Many passengers took to the social media about being stranded at airports. One tweeter handle biswajithvk tweeted  from the Thiruvananthapuram airport #airindia System failure what the heck !! Hand written boarding pass ! I have never seen it. This is really #IncredibleIndia – at Departures - Trivandrum  International Airport.

While the system was rectified, sources said that the number of cancellations was set to increase. They also added that it will take more than a day to clear the backlog of passengers stranded at airports.  A similar incident had taken place on June 23 last year when a technical glitch in the airline's check-in software delayed 25 of its flights across the country.