Air Canada ‘anticipating a normal day’ after system-wide outage resolved

By Espe Currie, Peter Wagner, Jonathan Szekeres

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Things are getting back to normal after Canada’s biggest airline experienced a system outage Tuesday night, bringing down computer systems for passenger check-in across the country and leaving thousands of passengers waiting for flights.

Air Canada said the outage impacted airport operations and call centres as well, so passengers were not able to call the airline for help.

The airline said on Wednesday that it was expecting a “normal day” after the technical issue responsible for the outage had been resolved, but urged passengers to check the status of their flights before heading to the airport.

According to Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick, “most functions have returned to normal” the morning after the disruption.

Some Wednesday flights have been cancelled due to planes being out of position after cancellations the day before, but Air Canada has said it plans to operate its full schedule.

It’s not clear how many flights at YVR were impacted, but long lineups and frustrated passengers filled the domestic terminal Tuesday evening. Air Canada passengers flying into Canada from the United States also reported delays.

Joe, a visitor from Boston who was stuck at Vancouver Airport, told NEWS 1130 passengers were in the dark about what was happening.

“Some people were walking in the door and going right to the kiosk and then they’re being told by somebody else who is waiting that everything is down,” he said. “There should be periodic announcements, I would think.”

Christine waited in line for hours trying to get on a flight to go see her father, and says she was beyond frustrated by the situation.

“Especially when my father, who is at the end stages of Alzheimer’s and he’s now in the hospital with a broken hip,” she said. “And I can’t get to him.”

At the peak of the system-wide outage, the website for Toronto Pearson International Airport showed delays of more than two dozen Air Canada flights.

 

Air Canada said it was putting on additional capacity on Wednesday in order to help get customers impacted by the outages to their final destinations. Five additional flights and several others have been “upgauged”, which means they’ll be assigned a larger than normal aircraft to accommodate more passengers.

According to the airline, Air Canada still managed to operate more than 95 per cent of its schedule on Tuesday.

-With files from Hana Mae Nassar and The Canadian Press

 

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