Virgin Blue delays to continue as airline recovers from computer system crash

Virgin Blue passengers are being warned to brace for further delays today as the airline tries to recover from a major computer malfunction that left about 100,000 customers stranded on Sunday.

Virgin Blue released a statement early this morning saying that its “airport check-in and boarding systems are back online and will be operating as normal from the first flights of the day today”.

But while the airline said it hoped for “minimal delays” today it has already been forced to cancel some flights, including flights on the busy Melbourne-to-Sydney and Melbourne-to-Brisbane routes.

Pictures from airports this morning suggest queues remain large, as Virgin tries to deal with the passengers left over from yesterday and passengers scheduled to fly today.

“While all check-in processes are back to normal, the airline requests the ongoing patience of guests this morning as we work through flow on effects of yesterday’s network-wide disruption,” the airline said this morning.

News of further disruptions and cancellations will be posted on the company’s website throughout the day.

The failure of Virgin’s check-in and boarding systems on September 26 led to the cancellation of 116 flights, with reports suggesting that up to 100,000 passengers were affected.

Virgin Blue blamed the computer crash on Navitaire, as US-based company that suppliers computer and hardware for 70 airlines around the world.

When the computer hardware failed, Virgin was forced to switch to a manual check-in process that simply could not cope with the number of passengers jetting around Australia, particularly with school holidays underway in many states.

Virgin took the unusual step of calling on passengers to cancel all non-essential travel and was forced to pay for many passengers to stay overnight in hotels.