Air Canada check-in issue resolved after nationwide tech problem

CTV Toronto: Air Canada glitch delays flights Air Canada warned passengers of flight delays due to freezing rain Tuesday, but a computer glitch posed a bigger problem.

Air Canada says technical difficulties that affected its booking and check-in services across Canada have been resolved.

In a statement emailed to CTVNews.ca, Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick confirmed that some flights were delayed or cancelled Tuesday because of an “IT system hardware problem.”

The technical problem was resolved shortly after 2 p.m. EST Tuesday, according to a tweet from the airline.

“We expect to get everyone to their destinations with minimal delay as we are adding larger aircraft where possible and were able to limit cancellations to a small handful of flights,” Fitzpatrick said in a statement. “We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate our customers’ patience.”

It’s unclear exactly how many flights were delayed or cancelled due to the error.

The issues became apparent around 11 a.m. EST on Tuesday morning, after a number of customers tweeted messages about their difficulties with the airline. The Air Canada Twitter account posted individual responses to the users apologizing for the delays and cancellations.

A red travel alert message remained on the top of Air Canada’s homepage as of early Tuesday afternoon, that said: “Due to a technical issue, it is currently not possible to complete bookings or check-in. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible, and apologize for any inconvenience this temporary interruption in service may cause.”

Just before noon, it appeared the problems had been fixed. Fitzpatrick wrote in an emailed statement that the “temporary computer issue” had been resolved and that operations were returning to normal. A few minutes later, however, Air Canada continued to tweet that there was a system outage and the travel alert message reappeared on the airline’s website after a short disappearance.