Virgin Blue Group of airlines update as of 1600
27-Sep-2010 This afternoon the Virgin Blue Group of Airlines received its first report from information technology provider, Navitaire, on the cause of yesterday’s hardware failure and subsequent outage of the airline’s internet booking, reservations, Check-in and boarding systems.
Navitaire is the supplier of Virgin Blue's reservation and distribution software platform and also hosts that platform on its own server infrastructure at a data centre in Sydney.
At 0800 (AEST) yesterday the solid state disk server infrastructure used to host Virgin Blue failed resulting in the outage of our guest facing service technology systems.
We are advised by Navitaire that while they were able to isolate the point of failure to the device in question relatively quickly, an initial decision to seek to repair the device proved less than fruitful and also contributed to the delay in initiating a cutover to a contingency hardware platform.
The service agreement Virgin Blue has with Navitaire requires any mission critical system outages to be remedied within a short period of time. This did not happen in this instance. We did get our check-in and online booking systems operational again by just after 0500 (AEST) today.
Navitaire has given us an assurance that they are thoroughly investigating all circumstances which led to the hardware device failure and the delay in getting an alternative platform up and running. They have given an undertaking to get a full report to us as soon as possible.
UPDATE ON VIRGIN BLUE GUEST INITIATIVES
We will move over 45,000 people through our network today, with all flights now running and average queues around 30 minutes. We expect to get most of our affected guests onto flights today. The following information is available for all Guests via the website - www.virginblue.com.au
For guests whose travel was disrupted YESTERDAY:
· We have commenced rebooking your flights and will contact you as soon as we have your new flight details.
· If you are still at home or your hotel we advise you wait there until we contact you.
· If you are in a hotel and your new flight time is later today or tomorrow please contact hotel reception for late check out or extend your stay.
For guests whose travel was disrupted TODAY:
· A list of cancelled flights is updated on the website.
· If your flight has been cancelled today we will rebook you onto a flight and contact you as soon as possible.
If you cannot be rebooked onto a flight TODAY:
· If you are not in your home town, are at the airport and require accommodation please contact the Guest Services Desk to arrange accommodation.
· If you are not in your home town, are not at the airport and require accommodation please extend your stay.
Claiming expenses
· If your flight is delayed by more than four hours, you can claim reasonable expenses for accommodation (up to $220 per night) and transport between your hotel and the airport. The form is found on the website: www.virginblue.com.au
We hope to minimise delays today, however we do ask all Guests prior to going to the airport to check our website which will be updated with information on any cancellations or changes to scheduled operations.
For any new bookings, only flights after midnight Wednesday 29 September are currently available for sale.
We again apologise to all Guests who had their travel plans disrupted during the past 24 hours.
For any flights cancelled today, we will be updating the list below regularly throughout the day:
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