Check in woes hold up Virgin passengers

Thousands of Virgin Blue passengers were left facing massive delays after the airline’s check-in systems at Melbourne Tullamarine Airport failed on December 15.

The failure was caused by damage to a Telstra cable at Tullamarine during the day, which was not fixed until 10:30pm, forcing the airline to cancel 48 flights and delaying up to 6000 passengers as it switched to manual check-in. Sydney and Hobart services are understood to have been particularly hard hit, with a number of passengers not able to be rebooked, and some potentially having to wait some days for spare seats.