Hundreds of Air India passengers were left stranded at several airports across the world as its check-in software stopped functioning for around six hours, the airline said Saturday.
According to airline sources, the software, which is ofAtlanta-based SITA company, was not functioning approximately from 3 am to 9 amSaturday. Consequently, boarding passes could not be issued at major airportsacross the world and various flights were delayed.
“The system has been restored. It has begunfunctioning. We regret the inconvenience that passengers had to face,”said the national carrier’s chairman and managing director Ashwani Lohani.
“We are trying to regularise all the flights for theday. But there would be some delay of flights today. I am expecting a delay ofaround two hours. Because in morning, the whole system got disturbed,” headded.
Lohani said that Air India uses a passenger services system,which looks after check-in, baggage and reservation, of the SITA company and”it was taken for maintenance today morning” by them.
“After that, there were some technical glitches,because of which, the system was not functional. There were some major problemsat big airports such as Delhi,” he added.
SITA regretted the inconvenience caused said it hadexperienced a complex system issue during server maintenance early morningwhich resulted in operational disruption to flights.
“We have now fully restored services at all airports where Air India were affected. Our priority remains, as always, to ensure a stable system where customers can conduct business efficiently and effectively, and we are undertaking a full investigation to understand the root cause and prevent a recurrence,” it said in a statement to PTI.