Glitch at 2 airports hit over 40 flights

A computer glitch caused travel chaos at the kingdom’s two busiest airports yesterday.

Hmndreds of fliers were delayed and airlines faced trouble as a result of the computer outage at airports in Riyadh and Jeddah.

The departure of dozens of international flights from both cities was delayed by several hours following the problem in the computer network of the immigration counters, according to airport sources and airlines managers.

“In fact, a breakdown in systems at immigration resulted in delayed flights and long wait for inbound and outbound passengers,” said Prabhu chandran, Air India manager.

“Passengers, who arrived at the airports in Riyadh and Jeddah were forced to wait for two hours or more for immigration clearance following the system failures,” said an airport official.

Spicejet flight to delhi departed late from riyadh. Passengers of Qater Airways flight, which landed at 3 a.m. yesterday at the KKIA managed to check out only after three hours.

According to airport sources, the outage lasted for about two hours and affected about 40 flights.

Khaled Al-Khaibary, a spokesman of the General Authority of Civil Aviayion, refused to commrnt. 

During the system failurr, some furious passengers vented their anger at social media.