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Brisbane Airport says it has cleared passenger queues from an earlier IT glitch affecting its baggage systems.
The computer glitch affected systems for Jetstar, Rex, Link Airways and Aerlink at the Domestic Terminal, with check-in staff manually processing these bags. A spokesperson for Brisbane Airport told Australian Aviation that only six early-morning flights were affected, with everything “running smoothly” from around 6:15am.
According to Stephen Beckett, head of public affairs at Brisbane Airport, the impact of the IT glitch was more minor than had been anticipated.
“For the vast majority of passengers passing through Brisbane Airport this morning, it has been business as usual,” he said.
“Our IT team have now identified the issue and have put in place a workaround which should see minimal issues throughout the morning. Passenger queues have now been cleared. We also activated our CARE team in case the problem was greater, and thankfully they weren’t needed.”
The glitch happened as Brisbane and other airports around Australia brace for the busy Easter period, with Queensland the first state to enter school holidays on 1 April. Brisbane Airport alone is expecting 1.4 million passengers through its terminals, and believes capacity on domestic flights is up 2 per cent on last year and up 77 per cent internationally.
Last year’s Easter break saw the all-time record for delays being broken as the industry buckled under the weight of airlines racing back to pre-COVID-19 passenger numbers but with far fewer staff. The issues continued for months, leading to airlines eventually cutting services to mitigate the issues.
This Easter will be the first since Qantas added 57 return services per week for Sydney–Melbourne–Brisbane. The increase raises Qantas’ capacity across the services rise by 11 points to 93 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
The Flying Kangaroo is also adding seats on transcontinental services to and from Perth using the airline’s larger Airbus A330 fleet, while sister carrier Jetstar is boosting its domestic and international flying capacity over the next six months by 15 percentage points.
Australia’s school holidays
