Virgin Blue on backup after Navitaire failure

Virgin Blue's computer systems are operating again after a day of nationwide chaos that left many passengers stranded.

(Virgin 737-800 image by planegeezer, CC2.0)

"The Virgin Blue group of airlines is pleased to advise that our airport check-in and boarding systems are back online and will be operating as normal from the first flights of the day today," the company said in a statement today.

"While all check-in processes are back to normal, the airline requests the ongoing patience of guests this morning as we work through flow-on effects of yesterday's network-wide disruption."

The airline said it hoped for "minimal delays".

Thousands of passengers had their flights cancelled yesterday after the airline's reservation and check-in systems, provided by external supplier Navitaire, suffered a hardware failure at around 8am yesterday. The airline was forced to switch to a manual system, creating delays for passengers across Australia.

The airline today switched to a back-up system; however, 10 flights scheduled to take off today have already been cancelled.

The Sydney Morning Herald also reported this morning that Virgin Blue passengers at Sydney Airport are still waiting to find out when they will have their flights rescheduled.

Many of those stranded were put up in hotels overnight.

Virgin Blue boasted the implementation of the Navitaire New Skies system in 2009, upgrading from Navitaire's Open Skies system.

"New Skies has the features, the built-in ancillary revenue capabilities, the broad airline alliance and GDS [global distributions system] capabilities and the flexible architecture to give our evolving carrier a competitive advantage now and in the future," former Virgin Blue CEO Brett Godfrey said in a statement at the time.

ZDNet Australia contacted Navitare's parent company, Accenture, for comment, but had not received a response at the time of writing.