Airline Post » airline failure

Amadeus downtime, major airlines affected

Dave — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:01:54 +0000

Amadeus, the online-booking system developped by Qantas, has caused disorder when it crashed all around the world, affecting thousands of airline and tourist agency websites. A spokesman for Qantas said they are currently working on identifying and fixing the issue while the staff has to manually approve bookings.

All flights operated by this system will experience delays for checking in or booking.

“There are delays because it takes longer to check in manually. We are working with Amadeus to rectify the problem and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. The issue is with Amadeus and all airline networks that use this program will be affected in some way,” the spokesman said.

According to the company, 458 airlines across the world use this system for booking and are consequently affected by the downtime. Major airlines, such as Lufthansa, British Airways or Air France are also suffering from this failure.

Insurance that covers airline failure

Dave — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:08:07 +0000

If you’re worried that, in this economical turmoil, your airline might go bankrupt, you can opt in for a travel insurance that covers you exactly for this. The British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) now includes in its packages protection against airline failure that affects holidaymakers who booked tickets.

More than half of holidays are booked independently by the traveler, avoiding travel agency, but getting exposed to the risk of insolvency. Over 50 lowcost and regular airlines worldwide have collapsed over the past year, leaving thousands of customers stranded or facing losses.

Several travel insurance plans, such as M&S Money’s annual policy, already cover such failure. But BIBA’s Protect insurance goes beyond and offers insurance against car rental companies, airlines, hotels and even theme parks that go bankrupt when the customer has already paid for the service.