Hyderabad: Thousands of Air India passengers were stuck in airports across the world due to an error in the check-in computer network of the airline that began at 3.30 am on Saturday.
Passengers, especially senior citizens and children, had a harrowing time. The flow of passengers was high given that it was the beginning of the weekend.
Air India put up an apology: “Due to the breakdown in our server system, some of our flights are getting affected all over the world. Work is on in full swing to restore the system. We sincerely regret inconvenience caused to passengers.”
The airline said that the passenger service system (PSS), operated by the Atlanta-based SITA, which provides IT services to airlines, was affected with a difficult system issue while undergoing scheduled maintenance in the morning. “This led to a delay in some of our flights globally. Subsequently, the system was fully restored by SITA at all airports at 8.45 am,” Air India said.
The airline said there could be subsequent delays. “As the disruptions and delays due to this outage happened at the start of the day, operations are likely to be somewhat delayed during the day due to a cascading effect,” it said.
Air India chairman and managing director Ashwani Lohani said passengers who miss their flights will be given hotel accommodations or rescheduled on a different flight of Air India or of an another airline, he said. SITA was looking into what caused the shutdown.
