Airline Virgin Blue system across Australia down again

Airline Virgin Blue reservation system crashed again on Wednesday morning, affected thousands of passengers across Australia.

Passengers had to be manually checked in during the shutdown, which delayed thousands of people between 5:10 a.m. and 7:00 a.m.

Passengers at Brisbane Airport were being checked in manually and flights were delayed at Melbourne, Sydney and Darwin airports.

According to ABC News, the system is now running again, but is slower than usual.

A spokeswoman for the airline described this morning's problem as just a "slight glitch". She said the problem emerged during tests on the book-in system, but staff are now working to clear the backlog of delayed passengers and I.T. problems have been resolved.

The airline's computer system has failed on Sunday, causing hundreds of flight delays and leaving customers stranded for two days in airports nationwide.

Virgin boss Richard Branson has apologized for the weekend's check-in chaos.

"It's been a terrible 24 hours with the computer system going down," he told Channel Seven in Jakarta of Indonesia on Sunday.

The airline has blamed its information technology provider, Navitaire, for the chaos, and legal action is being considered.

Source: Xinhua