Hong Kong airport on Saturday once again witnessed long lines of disgruntled passengers as carrier AirAsia was hit by fresh check-in problems following a global IT service outage the day before.
Budget carrier HK Express also announced in the morning that 20 of its flights remained cancelled, as some passengers left stranded overnight complained of poor contingency arrangements at the airport.
While the Airport Authority said on Saturday morning that check-in systems of airlines affected by Friday’s outage were back online, AirAsia faced fresh problems as staff were forced to write down customer information as they dealt with long lines of passengers stretching across the terminal hall.
“As a passenger, of course, I feel frustrated and disappointed, but there is nothing I can do,” said Stella Cho, a 50-year-old AirAsia passenger travelling to Penang with three other family members.
The group was supposed to reach their flight gate at 10.30am, but were still waiting at the check-in counter at around 10.19am.
“We have already checked in at home, so we were expecting it would not be so chaotic if we just dropped off our baggage, but it was still chaotic,” she said.
The social worker said she heard from staff that the airline’s check-in system had failed, with passengers queuing since 8.00am.
It is not yet clear whether the check-in problems are related to Friday’s outage.
The Post has reached out to AirAsia and the Airport Authority for comment.
HK Express, which is under the Cathay Group, also said system service provider Navitaire was gradually resuming operations after being affected by the outage, with the carrier’s local booking and online check-in platforms having largely returned to normal.
“We previously announced that 24 flights originally scheduled to depart on [Saturday] were impacted,” a spokesman said.
“We now confirm that flights UO172, UO173, UO552 and UO553 will be reinstated [with new departure times], while the remaining flights will remain cancelled. We appreciate our customers’ patience and understanding.”
Zhao Jianhui, 53, was among those affected by the disruption after his flight to Ningbo was shifted from 7.45pm on Friday to 6.25am the day after, forcing him to stay a night at a hotel near the city’s airport.
“There are not any arrangements for us. They treat us like we don’t exist,” he said.
“We want the airline to compensate for our transport fee, dinner fee and accommodation fee, but I guess they can’t make it.”
Zhao said he and his 70-year-old mother had to walk more than 30 minutes to get to the airport on Saturday morning. “There is no taxi at 3am,” he noted.
He paid HK$1,030 (US$130) for the pair’s hotel stay and another HK$1,075 per person for the flight.
“If there are choices for me, I will never choose HK Express again,” he added.
Fellow passenger Zhu Yuwen, 25, said she slept on a bench near the check-in counters with her mother and sister on Friday.
“I am tired to death now. There were a lot of people in the airport at night and it was noisy, we couldn’t fall asleep at all,” she said after arriving in Ningbo at around 8.50am the day after.
“We were disappointed that there were an emergency situation but no emergency plan. I will never choose HK Express again. Compensation should be decided based upon how long our flight had been delayed, but at least we need to be compensated with half price off our flight tickets.”
She said the air fares had cost them more than HK$2,000.
The Airport Authority had previously said the check-in systems of all airlines affected by the outage on Friday had resumed, adding that five carriers were affected by the incident.
The system outage forced airlines to manually check-in passengers, while airport staff implemented crowd control measures and brought in extra personnel to help those affected.
Microsoft on Friday confirmed the incident was caused by a system update from cybersecurity company Crowdstrike, adding it was offering support to customers.
In a letter to its customers and partners, Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz apologised for Friday’s outage that has knocked out the IT systems for multiple companies around the world.
