Hundreds of travellers have been hit by lengthy delays and travel chaos after an IT outage at Gold Coast Airport.
Passengers were reportedly forced to wait several hours on Monday morning after the glitch forced airline staff to revert to manual check-ins.
The outage was reportedly due to an overnight power blackout that affected the airport’s IT systems.
Bag drops were also affected, with the combined issues effectively grounding all international and domestic flights. Sixteen flights were due to depart Gold Coast Airport on Monday morning, but only three took off, leaving thousands of passengers still waiting to depart or forced to make other plans.
One passenger, Christopher Devine, said he was meant to be on a connecting flight to Singapore and then Britain.
“Its horrendous,” Mr Devine told the ABC.
“I can’t fault the airport staff, they have been great. But this is supposed to be an up-to-date airport.
“I don’t understand how they haven’t got a back-up system.”
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Another traveller said hundreds of travellers were waiting inside the terminal, but there had been little communication from staff – who were also waiting for more information.
He said the hundreds of travellers waiting just inside the airport doors had only received little communication from staff who were also waiting to receive more information.
“We can’t check in, we can’t check in online, so we’re just sitting pretty,” Chris, who did not give his surname, told Seven’s Sunrise.
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Queensland Airports Limited spokeswoman Carly Twyman apologised to affected passengers.
“Gold Coast Airport is currently experiencing an IT outage, which is causing delays during check-in,” Ms Twyman said.
“We are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, we apologise for the inconvenience.”
There were unofficial reports the glitch had been resolved by about 2pm (AEDT). However, the backlog of delayed passengers was expected to take several hours to clear.
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Monday’s outage came as hundreds of Jetstar passengers stranded on the tarmac in Alice Springs for nearly seven hours finally touched down in Melbourne.
They had been confined to the grounded plane throughout Sunday, with limited food and no-inflight entertainment, and complained they were not allowed to disembark for fresh air.
The extended delay came after their Jetstar flight from Bangkok to Melbourne had to divert to the Northern Territory due to a medical emergency.
After landing early on Sunday, an electrical fault was discovered on the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, meaning it had to remain grounded – and its 320 passengers with it – until a replacement plane arrived.
“Unfortunately while the aircraft was on the ground in Alice Springs, an electrical issue was detected, requiring a replacement part to be sourced from Sydney,” a Jetstar statement said on Sunday night.
“As a result, we organised a second aircraft to fly to Alice Springs this afternoon to get passengers on their way as fast as possible.”
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On board the grounded Jetstar flight
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Alice Springs is a domestic airport and has no customs processing facilities.
Jetstar said the airline worked with border agencies, the NT Police and the airport authority to allow passengers to disembark into a special partitioned section of the airport.
When they finally took off again for Melbourne, it was without their checked luggage. It could not be transferred to the replacement plane, and was to arrive in Melbourne later on Monday.
