Flights across the country have been delayed due to a global systems outage affecting Virgin and Rex airline flights.
Flights at Canberra Airport have been delayed up to two hours.
The outage affected airlines around the world, wreaking havoc with check-in, boarding and flight booking systems and leading to chaotic scenes in airports after it hit at about 5pm AEST.
“The icing on the cake to the past 14 months.” American Airlines employees are telling people their systems are down, no flights are leaving. Some passengers are traveling for the first time since the pandemic. @wralpic.twitter.com/5vcLYNHufX
— Kasey Cunningham (@WRALKasey) May 21, 2021
Both Rex and Virgin were manually checking in travellers in the early evening.
By 7.30pm, The Canberra Times understands the Sabre Software system that had been affected was back up and running, however all Virgin and Rex flights departing and arriving at Canberra Airport on Friday night were delayed.
A Rex flight arriving from Sydney was an hour behind, while a Virgin flight from Melbourne was expected to arrive after midnight - two hours behind schedule.
Departing flights to Adelaide and Melbourne due to leave around 7.30pm weren't expected to take-off until after 9pm.
Qantas was not affected in the outage.
