Travellers fume as Air India server acts up

Passengers at Mumbai airport wait in long queues after the Air India server went down early Friday.

Several passengers of national carrier Air India on Friday said they were stuck at the Mumbai airport early on Friday as the server of the airline was down and issuing of boarding passes had to be done manually, which took a long time.

However, the airline refused to comment on the issue. According to airport sources, at about 3 am on Friday the IT server went down. The airline staff was forced to fill and create the boarding passes manually. As this was a busy traffic hour in the city airport the queue of passengers started swelling and almost 600 were stuck in queue.

The problem was sorted out around 5.30 am on Friday when the server became operational again, informed a source, but the delay upset passengers. However, according to airport sources no instance of anyone missing their flight due to the server error came to light.

Meanwhile passengers who were stuck in the queue vented their anger on social networking sites. A few passengers asked to increase the number of the staff while a few asked the authorities to use up to date systems. One such passenger, Shaffi Mather, wrote on Twitter, Unbelievable! Air India IT systems @MumbaiAirport down. Passengers stranded. Make in India

Aashish Rajawat, 24, who was going to Delhi, said, “I reached the Airport almost three hours before my flight with a plan to shop in the duty free shop but the queue ruined my plans as I had to wait in a long queue for a long time”.

Neeta Arora, 48, who was also going to Delhi, said, “I was scared of missing my flight as the queue was taking longer then usual. I guess there was some problem in their computer.”