The airline Aer Lingus has to cancel flights to and from Dublin. The reason is a failure of the cloud connection for IT, through which everything runs.
The Irish Aer Lingus has canceled numerous connections at Dublin Airport due to IT problems. All flights to the EU and the United Kingdom that are scheduled to take off after 2 p.m. (3 p.m. CEST) on Saturday are affected, the broadcaster RTÉ reported. Aer Lingus called on travelers not to come to the airport. Previously, only a few delays had been mentioned.
Website and app down – check in by hand
Thousands of passengers waited in long queues inside and outside the Irish capital’s airport. The staff is trying to check travelers in for their flights by hand, RTÉ said. The Irish Times newspaper reported “chaotic scenes”.
“We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience,” the company tweeted. “We are working to fix the connectivity issues as soon as possible.” The airline’s website and smartphone app were also unavailable.
No connection to the cloud
The airline explains on its website that the cause is the failure of the network provider. The company’s IT for the web presence, check-in and boarding is operated in the cloud and the service provider’s primary and secondary network connections have failed, which is why the IT at Aer Lingus is practically at a standstill. It is currently unable to engage with customers at all and is advising those with airline tickets not to come to Dublin Airport in the first place, according to a statement on the website. The provider did not communicate a period in which the network connection would be restored.
Other airlines were therefore not affected. However, Aer Lingus connections from other airports where the IT system is used for check-in were affected. So there were long lines at the counter at London’s Heathrow Airport.
