Chaos at Mumbai airport for 1.5 hours as servers crash due to cable damage

Chaos erupted at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport on Thursday and several flights were affected after the internet server crashed due to a damaged cable, prompting airlines to issue boarding passes manually.

The server crashed at around 5pm and services remained disrupted for around 90 minutes.

“The systems went off at around 5pm and were restored completely at 6.35pm,’’ an airport official said.

In a statement issued later in the day, the Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) said: “There was a network interruption resulting from a cable cut during some construction work in the city. This interrupted the various ticketing systems. All systems are now restored and working.”

Several passengers took to social media to complain about the disruption.

“Massive massive Crowd at T2 because of a system issue. It’s unbearably messed up,” Shreyasi Ghosh, a passenger, tweeted.

“If you are flying from Mumbai, exercise caution. Got in after close to one-and-half-hours at the baggage drop counter,” another passenger, Bastab Parida, tweeted.

An Akasa Air spokesperson said flight services were affected.

“The outage was for over an hour. Due to long queues, some delays could have happened,” an IndiGo spokesperson said.

An official of an international said they sought deployment of more CISF staff to monitor the crowd.