INDIA: Hundreds Of Air India Passengers Stranded After Soft Ware Crash

Air India flights across the network since 3am (IST) on Saturday have been affected due to SITA’s passenger and baggage handling system being down.

The system resumed at 9am and along with a string of delayed flights. As a result, over 150 AI flights are likely to face delays of about two hours till 8.30pm.

Incidentally, SITA, a leading air transport IT specialist, says the snag happened during maintenance of the system and affected only Air India.

Thousands of passengers are stuck at big airports like Delhi and Mumbai as the affected system controls passenger and baggage check-in. AI is rescheduling flights to clear the backlog and flight delays of about two hours are expected.

After supervising the situation at Delhi Airport, AI chairman Ashwani Lohani said that SITA system has resumed at 8.45am. Due to this, till 10am, 85 of our flights have been delayed.

The ripple effect of the delays will be felt mainly on domestic flights till tonight. As of now, we have rescheduled 18 flights for today and cancelled some.

International flights will not face much impact barring a few like the Shanghai departure being delayed by 1.5 hours. The afternoon departures for Europe will leave with a delay of 15 to 30 minutes. It was a very major software disruption that we experienced.

AI and AI Group including AI Express and Alliance Air has 470 and 674 daily flights, respectively. AI officials rushed to airports to handle the situation as large number of passengers were stranded at high hubs.

Globally airlines experience such outages. We regret the inconvenience caused to passengers by the snag in SITA system. Some of our transit passengers like those coming from Kathmandu, Bangkok, Singapore to Delhi may miss their connections.

We have made hotel accommodations for such passengers. The change and reschedule charges have been waived for passengers affected by this major SITA outage, Lohani said.

Air India server crashed since 3.30 am. All flights cancelled. Thousands of passengers stranded at the airport. Nobody knows what is happening. Don’t go to the airport without confirming.

Air India server crashed since 3.30AM. All flights cancelled. Thousands of passengers stranded at the airport.

The snag affected functions like check-in, both at airport counters and web check-in, that delayed flights.

SITA spokesman Julius Baumann said SITA experienced a complex system issue during server maintenance early this morning, which resulted in operational disruption to Air India flights. We have now fully restored services at all airports where Air India were affected.

Our priority remains, as always, to ensure a stable system where customers can conduct business efficiently and effectively, and we are undertaking a full investigation to understand the root cause and prevent a recurrence.

We deeply regret the inconvenience this has caused to the airline and their customers owing to this disruption.


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INDIA: Air India Flight AI-405 Catches Fire while Landing; 5 Injured during Evacuation

Air India flight AI-405 caught fire on its left wing just before landing at Runway 27 of Delhi airport at 8:30pm on Monday, said reports.

Air India flight AI405 was

forced to make an emergency landing at Delhi airport on Monday evening after it caught fire midair.

All the 153 people on board including 144 passengers were evacuated safely. However, at least five of them were reported to have received minor injuries. They were given first aid treatment at the airport.

"We didn't see fire, there was a lot of smoke," ANI quoted Rajendra Desai, one of the passengers of AI-405.

A major tragedy was averted as the pilot of the Varanasi-Delhi flight (AI-405) pulled through a safe landing even after it caught fire just before reaching Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, reports said.

The pilot came to know about leak in hydraulic system in air when it was in the process of landing, Civil Aviation Minister Mahesh Sharma told media. He added that emergencies were declared and all fire brigade and security arrangements were made as soon as the pilot informed the air traffic control about the fire outbreak.

According to a report, the fire on the left wing of the aircraft was caused by a hydraulic leak in the nose wheel.

"Air India flight AI 405 from Varanasi to Delhi had an emergency landing here as the pilot reported hydraulic failure. All passengers were evacuated safely, however, some 4-5 of them sustained minor injuries during evacuation," PTI quoted airport sources as saying.