US tourists pay thousands for new flights after travel home axed in IT outage
Stephanie Thompson said she could not reach either of the airlines she had booked her cancelled flights with so rebooked herself.
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Your support makes all the difference.US tourists have paid thousands of pounds for new flights home from Edinburgh after IT outages left them unable to contact airlines when their original plans were cancelled.
A global IT outage affecting thousands of businesses has meant severe delays at airports and airlines.
Edinburgh appears to be the only Scottish airport severely impacted by the system outage, with staff urging those travelling to expect security waits of “around one hour”.
Flights have been delayed while others have been completely cancelled, leaving travellers in limbo.
Texas resident Stephanie Thompson is among those affected after visiting the UK for Wimbledon and The Open Championship in Troon, with her 9.25am flight to Heathrow on Wednesday, and onward flight to Dallas, cancelled.
She told the PA news agency she was so concerned about getting home she decided to pay 6,800 US dollars (£5,300) for her family to fly home later in the evening.
She said: “It was supposed to leave at 9.25am and change in Heathrow at 11 and we were supposed to get into Dallas later today.
“We couldn’t get an answer from anybody. British Airways kept hanging up saying we have too many calls right now. I was on hold with American (Airlines) for about an hour and 10 minutes before I finally hung up.
“We just paid 6,800 dollars for a one-way trip home, hopefully leaving tonight. I didn’t know what else to do. I just wanted something to get us home.”
Earlier, a 16-year-old Edinburgh Airport passenger was left in “floods of tears” fearing she would miss her connecting flight to visit her father in the US.
Alison Mattu said her teenage daughter Priya raced through the airport to make her first flight to Dublin.
She made the connection, but her mother fears she could still miss her transatlantic flight to Washington.
She told the PA news agency: “It was chaos. People confused being sent outside all the way to the trams and car park, told (it was a) security issue.
“Panic setting in for those, including my 16-year-old daughter travelling alone to visit her father via Dublin to Dulles, Washington DC, if they missed their flight.
“She ran in floods of tears on the phone to me, distressed and worried sick.
“Happily, she made her first flight. Who knows about the other people travelling with young babies, elderly and non-English speakers.”
However, Ms Mattu said the airport staff were “amazing” at keeping people in the queues updated.
Writing on X, another traveller told of “complete chaos” at Edinburgh.
Tracy McQue added: “An hours queue to check in, another hour to the security gates, departure boards not working and lots of confused faces. Not sure if flights are actually taking off.”
Edinburgh Airport said on X: “Passengers should not travel to the airport without first checking the status of their flight with the airline.
“The wait at security is currently around one hour due to the outage and our teams are managing this as best as they can.”
In an update, it said passengers with cancelled flights should “leave the airport and contact their airline directly”.
By around lunchtime on Friday the situation at the airport appeared to have improved, and the long queues of travellers waiting to get into the airport had been cleared.
AGS Airports, which owns and operates Aberdeen and Glasgow airports, said they are “largely unaffected”, but “a small number of airlines have moved to manual check-in and some retailers are only accepting cash payments”.
The Scottish Government Resilience Room has been activated to assess the impact of the IT outage across the country.
Scottish Government systems are “functioning normally” and there has been “minimal impact” on NHS services across the sector.
A spokesperson said: “In response to worldwide IT issues, the Scottish Government Resilience Room (Sgorr) has been activated to asses any potential impacts across Scotland.”
The statement added: “We are aware of impacts at Edinburgh Airport and would urge those travelling today to check with their operator.”
It went on to say that ScotRail and the Caledonian Sleeper services remain unaffected.
Meanwhile, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) confirmed some of its systems have also been affected by the outage but it said mitigations have been put in place to avoid any disruption.
A spokesperson said: “NHSGGC has robust contingency planning in place in the event of any system outages.
“We are currently monitoring the situation and while a very small number of systems have been impacted, appropriate mitigations are in place to avoid disruption to services.”