NEW DELHI: More than two dozen Air India flights were delayed across its network, including at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, on Saturday due to a technical glitch in the airline’s check-in software, which was down for an hour. The departure timings of as many as 25 flights were affected and the delays owing to the software malfunction stretched from 15 to 30 minutes, an Air India spokesperson said. The flights were delayed for three hours at Delhi’s IGI Airport after the debt-laden airline’s server failed at its data centre in Atlanta, US.
However, later in the day the state-run-carrier tweeted that normal operations had resumed. Soon after the Air India flights were delayed, people at the airport started tweeting.
“Just reached Delhi Airport and found out that Air India servers are down for the last two hours. All domestic and international flights are grounded. The airport looks like a mela of stranded passengers with hardly any space to even walk,” chief executive of BlueKraft Digital Foundation, Akhilesh Mishra, tweeted.
Air India tweeted that due to unexpected network connectivity issues at its Atlanta data centre, “which had a worldwide impact, 25 flights were delayed from 1210 hours to 1510 hours on Air India network.” Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said they had been following up on the matter and the systems had been restored.
“Apologies for the inconvenience suffered. Air India has been asked to ensure that our valued passengers are kept fully informed at all times,” Sinha tweeted. Air India’s software solution is managed by SITA, a global airlines IT services solutions major, which provides check-in, boarding and baggage tracking technology.
Notably, operations of other airlines such as Oman Air, Air Arabia and Uzbekistan Airlines were also affected due to the glitch as they use the same software. Earlier this week, the government decided to put on hold divestment in Air India. A 76 per cent stake of the debt-laden carrier was put on sale by the government in March this year, but by May 31, the deadline for bidding, Air India had not attracted any interest from investors.