india

Updated: Apr 27, 2019 14:37 IST

Air India’s operations across the world were affected for over five hours Saturday morning following a glitch in its main server. The server was restored by 8:45 am but the shutdown had left hundreds of passengers stranded at various airports.

The server shutdown has caused a major delay in Air India’s services as 155 flights are running late for average duration of two hours till 8.30 pm today. Around 18 flights have been rescheduled.

Air India’s chairman and managing director Ashwani Lohani told ANI that the system was restored but warned of further delays during the day.

Ashwani Lohani, CMD Air India: B/w 3:30 to 4:30 am today, passenger services system of Air India that is run by SITA was taken for maintenance & after that it remained down till 8:45 am, it has just come back. System restored. During the day we will see consequential delays pic.twitter.com/nyUUHJcSaa — ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019

The airline’s flights on national and international routes were badly affected since early Saturday morning as the airline’s server went down. Air India’s check-in, boarding and baggage tracking technology is managed by SITA, a global airlines IT services major.

Many passengers travelling on domestic and international routes were stranded at the Delhi airport.

“SITA server is down. Due to which flight operation is affected. Our technical teams are on work and soon system may be recovered. Inconvenience is deeply regretted,” Air India spokesperson had said earlier in the morning.

Irate Passengers took to Twitter to complain about delayed flights and shared pictures and videos of crowded airports in Mumbai and Delhi.

Over 3 hrs of waiting for their system to function and .@airindiain has finally decided they should offer water to the waiting travellers. It's astounding how much you care #AirIndia.

No officials seen helping form queues and attending to passengers yet. pic.twitter.com/9FxU0Kz104 — Rumela Basu (@colorsendless) April 27, 2019

#AirIndia #Ai381 Singapore to Delhi SYstem Failure at check-in ! What to expect if that’s the condition of a national carrier ! #changiairport #ichangi no relief no update 😡 pic.twitter.com/Gw2R6uwsVR — Priyam پریم (@priyamharit) April 26, 2019

#airindia systems down globally since 3 am. Must be at least 2000 people camped in #Mumbai T2 #Airport. And more people coming in with #flights scheduled every half hour. Nightmare truly! pic.twitter.com/Bmpe7QCIUx — R Vasundara (@TheKalamWaliBai) April 27, 2019