Chaos At Beirut’s Airport Last Night After Major Technical Glitch
A technical glitch on the departure control systems at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri Airport caused chaos for travelers and thousands of hours worth of delays. The mishap occurred last night, September 6, at 11 PM.
The technical glitch, which reportedly occurred on the global communications provider SITA’s network, resulted in insane crowds, missed connecting flights, and people being stuck waiting in line for hours.
Most, if not all departing flights taking place during the crisis experienced major delays. For example, the Emirates Flight EK 956 which was scheduled to land at 5 PM experienced a delay of 9 hours. The Middle East Airlines flight to Paris ME 209 landed 6 hours late, and Alitalia AZ827 returned to Rome as a ferry flight with no passengers onboard.
The aviation page Lebanese Plane Spotters also revealed that at some point, boarding passes were issued manually in an attempt to remedy the situation.
Image via LebanesePlaneSpotters
According to the National News Agency, the technical problem was resolved at around 4:30 AM on September 7th.
Many passengers took to Twitter in an attempt to contact support agents for their missed and delayed flights.
@lufthansa I missed your flight because the #Beirut airport had humongous crowds and a giant technical glitch. Most, if not all, Lufthansa passengers missed their early Friday morning flight. What is our recourse? We arrived 4 hours ahead of time. pic.twitter.com/dN2jA4xeRz
