Global system outage hits Australian airline, causing major delays

A major Australian airline has been hit with a global system outage, affecting flights and frustrating countless travellers.

Virgin Australia on Friday reported the major outage, which hampered check-in and boarding systems.

Passengers reported growing crowds at airports, with several flights delayed because of the issue.

“Virgin Australia’s system crashed about an hour ago,” one traveller wrote.

“They can’t check anyone in, the airport is getting very busy.

“This sucks.”

A second traveller at Melbourne airport said crowds built after boarding gates were shut down across the country.

All Virgin Australia flights arriving in and departing from Brisbane Airport on Friday night were delayed, with some even being cancelled entirely.

All flights departing the airport from 4.50pm onwards were delayed, with an 8.15pm flight to Adelaide called off.

In total at Brisbane Airport, 17 departing flights were delayed and one was cancelled, and 17 arriving flights were delayed and one was cancelled.

Virgin Australia announced just after 8pm that the issue had been resolved and thanked travellers for their patience.

Earlier, a spokesperson for the airline said the cause of the outage was under investigation.

The spokesperson said a number of airlines globally had been affected.

“Airport staff have moved to manual check-in processes but there are delays,” the spokesperson said.

“We are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We recommend that customers check their flight status on our website.”