Check-In Systems Crash at Multiple Airports; Flight Delays Reported as Confusion Grows Over ‘Windows Outage’ Claim
Major disruptions in check-in systems at Indian airports caused delays for dozens of flights. At Varanasi an airport announcement pointed to a global Microsoft Windows outage, which Microsoft refutes. This is the complete tale.
image for illustrative purpose
What Happened This Morning?
Passengers at several Indian airports had to put up with impediments on Wednesday morning, as airport check-in systems went down unceremoniously leading to very long queues and numerous delayed flights.
Well-informed sources revealed that the outage affected the flight operations at large of the major airlines, thereby making the staff to resort to manual check-in and boarding processes.
Mixed Messages: Was Microsoft Windows Really Down?
To make things more complicated, a message read out at Varanasi Airport said that the system failure was due to a 'major global Microsoft Windows outage'.
Upon this Microsoft denied the claims outright, calling it "factually incorrect" and stating that no outages had been reported anywhere in the world.
Moreover, the global IT outage monitoring platform Downdetector showed not even a trace of any disturbance which was again contradicting the airport announcement.
Airlines Impacted
As per the first update, the glitch impacted flights of at least four airlines:
IndiGo
SpiceJet
Akasa Air
Air India Express
People travelling had to face delays because the system failure made the airline staff to go through the slow, manual processes.
What Authorities Said
Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) confirmed the problem and said:
"Some domestic airlines are currently facing operational difficulties... Our teams at the airport are working hard with all parties concerned to provide a smooth passenger experience."
The airlines have not yet given any detailed statements.
So What Actually Went Wrong?
Although the exact reason is still not known, one thing is sure;
The airport message should not have put the blame on Microsoft Windows.
The outage seems to have been either at the airlines level or at the system level but not a worldwide tech failure.
More updates are likely as airlines dig deeper for the root cause.
