SINGAPORE - Checking in at Changi Airport took longer for some passengers as a technical issue affected check-in systems of some airlines, the airport said in a statement on social media on Thursday (Sept 28) night.
Changi Airport said in its advisory at 6.53pm: "Due to a technical issue affecting the check-in systems of some airlines, the check-in process may take longer as manual boarding passes have to be issued. We appreciate your patience on this matter."
Singapore Airlines was one of the airlines affected. ST understands that Qantas was also affected.
A spokesman for SIA told ST that it was notified at about 5.30pm about a global outage affecting some of its systems.
"Our engineers are currently working to rectify the issue," it said. "Customers may experience some slowness during the booking and checking-in of flights. We apologise to all those affected for the inconvenience caused."
The glitch lasted a few hours.
In an update at 8.37pm, Changi Airport said that check-in systems of affected airlines had been restored.
A spokesman for SIA said in a response to ST at 10.18pm that "the technical issues affecting our reservations and check-in systems have been resolved, with minimal impact on our flight operations".
SIA uses the Amadeus Altea software, which is experiencing network issues and causing disruption to airports globally.
This includes London's Heathrow and Gatwick, Charles de Gaulle in Paris and Washington DC's Reagan Airport, British news outlet The Telegraph reported.
Changi Airport has not commented on whether all airlines experiencing network issues use this software.
A spokesman for Spanish IT provider Amadeus told ST that it experienced a network issue that caused disruption to some of its systems.
"During the morning, we experienced a network issue that caused disruption to some of our systems," said the spokesman.
"As a result of the incident, customers experienced disruption to certain services. Amadeus technical teams took immediate action to identify the cause of the issue and mitigate against the impact on customers."
The spokesman added in a statement at 10.32pm: "Amadeus can confirm that our systems are recovered and are now functioning normally."
When ST arrived at Changi Airport's Terminal 1 around 8.30pm, the situation appeared normal. There were no long queues at Qantas counters, and there were no crowds either.
There were no long queues at SIA's counters at Terminal 3, either.
ST has contacted Changi Airport for more information.
