Virgin Blue axes flights for switch back to online check-in system
Virgin Blue cancelled anew some flights scheduled for Wednesday, in what the company labelled as a planned disruption, following the resumption of its computerised check-in services today.
The new round of cancellations came after the airline's system meltdown that saw an estimated 50,000 passengers getting stranded barely two weeks ago though Virgin Blue issued a statement assuring that the outage was merely part of the switch resulting from a technical glitch that has been fixed.
Virgin Blue spokeswoman Melissa Thompson gave assurance that the repaired check-in system would be in full swing by today as she told ABC that "this is a planned outage so we've had a comprehensive plane to revert back and certainly we've communicated all changes to guests."
Ms Thompson added that no more delays should be expected by Virgin Blue passengers unless weather conditions intervene as she revealed that travellers using the airline have been advised as early as Saturday that a number of cancellations may hit Wednesday flights.
Virgin Blue said that accommodations have been arranged for affected passengers, stressing at the time that delayed flights should resume within an hour of their original departure time.
An estimated 1400 passengers were expected to be affected by the service disruptions, which came after the system crash that hit Virgin Blue 10 days ago and prevented some 50,000 passengers from taking their flights on time.
The airline's back up system failed to immediately restore services and only came back online after a gruelling 21 hours of waiting and frustrations on the part of the travellers though the new glitch appeared to have been resolved quickly this time.
Ms Thompson said that the system was restored as early as 8pm last though effects of the problem could still be felt by Thursday morning as she added that passengers would need to personally check-in at terminal desks until the system is fully restored.
Virgin Blue announced that it was forced to cancel 16 flights on Sydney, the Gold Coast, Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane routes today due to the new system hiccup.