Move to online check-in could lead to more airport chaos

PA

Thousands of travellers were delayed for hours at Australian airports yesterday when the computer check-in system crashed. Now one expert has warned that travellers will face more disruption in the future, simply because online check-in is becoming more commonplace.

IT and network security expert Adjunct Professor Bill Caelli told the Sydney Telegraph: "This is only the start, I am predicting we will see more of this chaos."

Yesterday's delays were caused by a failure with the Navitaire online check-in system, which meant that airlines including Jetstar, Virgin Australia, Tiger and Rex had to check passengers in manually. Online bookings were also affected.

The Australian reported that the computer failure lasted for three hours and resulted in flight cancellations and delays of several hours.

Jetstar spokesman Stephen Moynihan told The Australian that the problem was caused by a power failure at a data centre in Sydney.

Jetstar and VirginAustralia passengers were given food vouchers and three Virgin flights departing from Sydney airport had to be cancelled due to congestion at the gates.

A similar system crash in 2010 resulted in two days of flight cancellations and delays. A Virgin spokesperson explained that Virgin would be migrating to a new IT system next year, and would no longer be using Navitaire.

Click on the image below to see celebrities hiding at the airport...

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