155 Air India flights to be delayed till 8.30pm after server glitch

As many as 155 Air India flights are expected to be delayed till 8.30 pm on Saturday after the check-in software of the airlines stopped functioning for around six hours.

The system was, however, restored later Saturday morning.

A total of 155 flights will be delayed for an average duration of two hours till 8.30 pm. "155 flights, with an average duration of two hours, are expected to be delayed till 2030 hours," Air India spokesperson said.

This came after the Air India's passenger service system (PSS) software was shut down for six hours.

Thousands of passengers had a harrowing time Saturday morning at airports across the world as the airline's PSS software, which looks after check-in, baggage and reservation, did not function from 3.30 am to 8.45 am due to a technical glitch.

The airline's chairman and managing director (CMD) Ashwani Lohani said he expects normalisation of operations by Saturday night.

The average number of flights that Air India group, which also includes subsidiaries Alliance Air and Air India Express, flies daily are around 674.

Many passengers vented their ire on social media as the airline could not issue them the boarding passes on Saturday morning.

A Dr Sonal Saxena tweeted at 7.20 am, "Utter chaos. Air India systems not working at Delhi since 3 am. All flights grounded and delayed. No checkins and boarding."

The airline's spokesperson had said at around 8 am, "SITA server is down. Due to which flight operation is affected. Our technical teams are on work and soon system may be recovered."

A similar incident took place on June 23 last year when a technical glitch in the airline's check-in software delayed 25 of its flights across India.

The airline had tweeted on June 23, "Due to unexpexted network connectivity issues at SITA #Atlanta #Datacenter , which had a #worldwide impact, 25 flights were delayed from 1210 hrs to 1510 hrs on #Airindia network. Operations are normal now (sic)."