Thousands hit as software snag delays 149 AI flights

NEW DELHI: Almost 150 flights of Air India faced delays of about two hours on Saturday as SITA’s software of the airline’s passenger and baggage check-in system crashed in the early hours of the day.

The global travel IT biggie encountered this snag during maintenance that saw the system remaining shut from 3 am to 9 am. As a result, thousands of AI passengers stuck at airports across its network.

Even when the system resumed, the domino effect meant 149 flights across AI Group — including AI both domestic and international, AI Express and Alliance Air — were delayed throughout the day. Full normalcy, which will mean passengers who missed connecting flights being sent to their destinations, is expected in a day or two. Incidentally, SITA, a leading air transport IT specialist, says the snag happened during maintenance of the system and affected only Air India.

AI chairman Ashwani Lohani rushed to the Delhi Airport to handle the situation. “The SITA system resumed at 8.45 am. Due to this, till 10 am 85 of our flights had been delayed. The ripple effect of the delays will be felt till Saturday night. We have rescheduled and cancelled some flights. It was a very major software disruption that we experienced.”
AI and AI Group (including AI Express and Alliance Air) have 470 and 674 daily flights, respectively.
“We regret the inconvenience caused to passengers by the snag in SITA system. The change and reschedule charges have been waived for passengers affected by this outage,” Lohani added.
SITA is yet to say how it will compensate AI passengers and the airline .
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References

1. ^{^} Air India (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
2. ^{^} Ashwani Lohani (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)

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