The global IT outage that affected thousands of flights and the plans of millions of travellers has largely passed, with airports and airlines across the globe and around Australia saying that services have virtually returned to normal.
Over the weekend, the country’s busiest airports including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth reported a return to normal operations – albeit with a warning that there could be some extra congestion.
Similarly, Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia reported that the issues caused by the IT outage have effectively been handled, with the flying kangaroo advising its passengers to continue to travel to the airport for their upcoming flights.
Despite the positive updates however, the IT outage’s after-effects linger on.
In the midst of their peak summer period, airlines and travel companies in Europe have warned of a potential travel backlog caused by the IT outage, a consequence of a software update by US cybersecurity company, Crowdstrike.
According to The Guardian, one of Europe’s largest low-cost carriers, Wizz Air, said that flight schedules would take “some time to return to normal”.
With travellers potentially “days” away from getting to their destination, the airline added that many passengers could be left without accommodation due to the high holiday season.
One of the UK’s biggest travel companies, TUI, said it had cancelled numerous flights on Sunday, following the cancellation of 32 flights on Friday, the Guardian reported.
According to The Independent, IT experts warned that it could take weeks for tech systems to fully recover following a massive disruption to services over the weekend.
Air travel returns
In the US, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) released a timelapse of how the IT outage hit air travel, with the graphic showing a relative standstill of flights during the early hours following the tech issue.
However, the timelapse also highlights the resilience of the aviation sector, showing how it recovered in its aftermath.
What’s more, flightaware.com data reveals that there was actually a rise in the number of flights around the world over the past seven days compared to the seven days prior.
What about compensation?
Elsewhere, the CEO of Swiipr, which provides major airlines with digital disruption payments systems, says passengers will unlikely be eligible for flight delay compensation “as it will almost certainly be considered an extraordinary event, being something that was outside an individual airline’s control”.
“However, in the UK and other European countries, passengers are still entitled to assistance during extended delays even in such circumstances, for example, the provision of food and drink while they wait for their journey,” Tara Spielhagen said.
“In many other countries including the US, airlines also have to provide assistance to their passengers under their terms and conditions.”
According to Spielhagen, the company has seen a “more than 200 per cent increase in compensation payouts compared with a normal day, and this continues to spike”.
In Australia, stranded passengers reported being given vouchers worth around $10 by Jetstar, Business Insider reported over the weekend.
NTIA extension
Meanwhile, the Australian Travel Industry Association (ATIA) has announced it has extended the deadline for submissions for the National Travel Industry Awards (NTIA) to 11.59pm (AEST) on 23 July, citing the impact of the Microsoft outage.
ATIA says the decision gives participants affected by the IT outage enough time to finalise and submit their entries for the remaining awards (categories 1-20 and 32-35).
“We understand the challenges caused by the recent Microsoft outage and its impact on our online submission platform and many of the nominees put looking after their clients first,” ATIA CEO Dean Long said.
“Our priority is to provide a fair opportunity for all nominees to participate in this prestigious awards.”
