Computer failure hits Cathay in rush hour
3,700 passengers stranded or delayed by early-morning chaos at Chek Lap Kok
A breakdown of Cathay Pacific's computer systems yesterday stranded or delayed 3,700 passengers as overwhelmed staff scrambled to manually check in and board frustrated travellers.
Cathay said the crash of its check-in system at Chek Lap Kok, which was caused by a server malfunction in Sydney, lasted for 90 minutes from 6.45 am and affected 13 flights during the morning rush hour at the airport.
'Most people were delayed around an hour,' said Cathay spokeswoman Elsa Leung. 'One of the routers in our Sydney data centre was [frozen]. The router is the gateway between our departure-control system and the wide-area network, and it affected our airport check-in and boarding handling.'
Because it was only a 'short delay', Cathay would not be offering compensation, she said.
Harris Vertlieb, a Singapore businessman, said his flight was delayed two hours.
'They had a crisis on their hands,' Mr Vertlieb said. 'People were lined up down the corridor to the train. There was no crisis management.'
He said he was offered a $40 breakfast coupon, which he did not redeem.
A Hong Kong-based businessman said passengers were inadequately informed about what caused the delays and what alternatives were open to them.
'There were literally thousands of people who were unimpressed, especially the first- and business-class passengers. You could feel the rage,' he said. '[Cathay] had no crisis-management team and no one telling people what was going on.
'I was supposed to leave at nine. The flight left at 10.30, but I got bumped off because it was overbooked,' he said. 'All the flights were backed up.'
With no information about when the next Cathay flight would become available, he bought a ticket to Bangkok on Thai Airways via Chiang Mai.
'I was supposed to go golfing in Phuket this afternoon, but that's not going to happen,' he said. 'It's totally unacceptable. If I had paid for a first-class ticket I would be on the phone to [soon to be chief executive] Tony Tyler.'
Cathay, which said flight schedules had returned to normal by 11am, has seen record demand of late. It moved 1.14 million passengers last month, up 13.2 per cent on June 2002.
A Merrill Lynch report released this week estimated the number of available seats the airline filled hit 81 per cent in June.
The investment bank's analysts estimate Cathay to be on track for a net profit of $5.06 billion this year.
The breakdown yesterday was the latest of several mishaps at the airport. This month a systems failure cut air-conditioning, while last month a power cut plunged the airport into darkness for two hours.
