On Friday morning there were huge queues at check-in counters and problems in other areas of the airport, the source of the problem - which has affected air traffic in numerous countries - seemingly lying with the Navitare platform which uses Amadeus, the network that airlines worldwide use to manage different operational processes. Navitare has been affected by a generalised failure of a Microsoft cloud service, Azure.
The system failure has blocked normal airport operations, such as check-in. Some airlines have notified those who plan to fly this Friday to go to the airport three hours in advance due to the operational difficulties being experienced. Ryanair sent this message: "Possible interruptions in the network (Friday July 19) due to a global interruption of the system of a third party. We advise passengers to arrive at the airport three hours before their flight."
On social media, passengers have said that there is total "collapse" at Palma. "Nothing is working - you can't enter the car park or buy water."
One passenger, in a check-in queue for ninety minutes, said that operations were being done manually "I've been in line for an hour and a half for them to now put a tag on my luggage without any information. They must think we are stupid. My suitcase is going to get lost no matter what!"
María Ángeles flying to Bilbao found herself in a long queue. She has been waiting for an hour and the airline has not started to check in, nor have they been informed of the network problem. "We found the queue that went all the way to the back, we don't know anything, we found out by chance," she said.
Tourists Alan and Valery May explained that they have been waiting in a queue for more than two hours and no one has offered them any solution. They do not know when they will be able to return to Bristol.
Charlie and Katie were on their way back to Birmingham and when they saw the news, they didn't know the real extent of the fault. "We thought it was going to be a fault at the counters, but when we arrived we saw it was a problem throughout the airport.
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Sounds like some dystopian novel of the near future where the world collapses and descends into anarchy. When probably it was just a 'techie' with a hangover who hit the wrong computer keys. Scary.
Anyone know how Liz Truss's first day at Microsoft went?
Skynet is taking over at last.