Lisbon, July 19, 2024 (Lusa) - The global technological failure affecting airlines caused some queues at the check-in counters at Lisbon airport on Friday, but travellers remain hopeful of a smooth holiday despite flight delays.
Throughout the morning, traffic began to pile up at the entrances to Lisbon airport, with travellers following the airlines' advice to travel to thr airport in advance, due to the global failure of the Microsoft system that is affecting several companies, including airlines such as Ryanair and Vueling.
In what is usually a busy airport, the scene didn't differ much from normal, at least as far as the security area, were it not for the warnings of delayed flights on the screens and some long queues at the check-in counters.
‘They're saying that all the flights are delayed, but we don't know how long yet,’ Jennifer told Lusa in the queue for the Transavia check-in, trying to get home “if I can” after a holiday in Portugal.
Already in the queue at the Vueling counter, Airton was unaware that there was a global computer problem affecting air travel.
‘I've had a problem with the flight, I was checking in on the Vueling website and it's not working,’ he said.
Alice seemed to have more luck, as she was about to go on holiday to Ibiza in Spain as soon as she got past the queue to check her bags.
‘The timetable remains the same, we've already looked at the panels. We checked in yesterday [Thursday], we didn't expect this situation, but we checked in online, let's hope everything goes well,’ said Alice.
On the bus that connects the two airport terminals, Rafael Pocai and his girlfriend were carefully reading the information on how to apply for refunds, after being grounded due to an overbooking problem (selling more tickets than seats on the plane) on a Ryanair flight to Milan, Italy.
‘They said they don't have the system to issue the voucher, so I have to ask for reimbursement of the expenses I'm going to have,’ he explained.
According to a statement sent to Lusa, Microsoft is working to resolve the problems with customers, one relating to Azure and the other to CrowdStrike, which are affecting companies, airlines and telecoms companies around the world.
MPE/ADB // ADB.
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