Virgin Blue flights back to normal, but fallout continues

Virgin Blue’s IT disaster appears to be almost over, with the last of the passengers stranded when its IT systems crashed on Sunday set to be flown home today.

However, Virgin is continuing to count the cost of the IT hardware failure. The company will offer compensation of up at least $220 a night plus transport costs to those stranded interstate by the issue, and is also considering legal action against the IT systems provider it has blamed for the crash.

Virgin said in a statement this morning that airport check-in and boarding systems are back on line, and the process of rebooking passengers stranded on Sunday and Monday is underway.

However, some passengers appear certain to experience some delays, with Virgin warning that the wait times for its call centre are still extremely long.

“We hope to minimise disruptions today, however we do ask all guests prior to going to the airport to check our website which will be updated with information on any cancellations to scheduled operations.”

So far, there are no cancellations.

Virgin Blue major shareholder Richard Branson delivered an apology overnight from Jakarta, telling Seven Network that it had been a “terrible 24 hours” for the network.

However, the incident will cost Virgin much more than an apology. The company stands to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars to affected passengers for compensation for accommodation and transport costs, and may also struggle to repair its brand among the business customers that its new chief executive John Borghetti wants to go after.

Virgin Blue has been quick to blame the supplier of its IT system, airline technology expert Navitaire, for the disaster, and executive Andrew David stepped this up yesterday, saying legal action is being considered.

“The service agreement Virgin Blue has with Navitaire requires any mission critical system outages to be remedied within a short period of time,” he told reporters in Brisbane.

“This did not happen in this instance.”