Qantas check-in kiosks hit by outage

Qantas' Next Generation Check-in kiosks were struck by a printing outage this morning that affected the airline's contingent of devices around the country.

(Qantas B737-800 VH-VXU image by Andy Mitchell, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Qantas told ZDNet Australia this morning that while users could check in, the printing of boarding passes would ultimately fail, meaning that customers who didn't check in online or via mobile were left without the necessary documentation to board.

The Australian also reported this morning that kiosks were unable to read frequent flyer cards or booking barcodes.

The airline said that as a back-up measure, it directed customers who couldn't print their passes to airport service desks where staff were on hand to print the necessary papers for boarding.

Qantas wasn't the only airline affected by check-in issues this morning. According to the airline's Twitter account, the outage stemmed from an issue with service provider Amadeus.

"The earlier check-in system issue was [caused by a] fault with [the] Amadeus system, affecting all airlines supplied by Amadeus globally," the airline said, while assuring that the issues were in fact rectified.

Amadeus systems were to blame for a previous Qantas outage in August 2010, which forced passengers to check in manually and left thousands delayed. The airline's outgoing CEO said at the time that the issue could be traced back to an unexpected piece of "new data" dropping into the system.

The Next Generation Check-in kiosk facilitates self check in at the airport concourse around the country. The kiosks present in all major capital airports around the country, as well as regional ports around the country. Plans were recently announced to expand the system to New Zealand.