Incheon Airport hit by a third departure system glitch in one week

If you've flown out of Incheon lately, you may have noticed things getting a bit bumpy. A departure system failure on 6 November was the third in just one week at South Korea's main international airport.

What happened?

At around 6:35 a.m. on 6 November, a system fault hit the third-floor departure halls of Terminals 1 and 2, according to Incheon International Airport Corporation (the airport's operator). Passengers who had checked in scanned their boarding passes at the readers at the security checkpoint entrance. Instead of going through, the readers kept sounding a "transport information not confirmed" alert.

Security staff had to check passports and boarding passes by hand. Passengers of 14 airlines, 10 at Terminal 1 and 4 at Terminal 2, were affected for a while.

Emergency measures were completed at about 7:27 a.m., 52 minutes after the fault was reported. The operator said no flights were delayed. It believes a temporary delay in data processing in its own internal system was the cause, and said it took steps to keep crowding in the departure hall to a minimum.

What happened before?

This is the third departure-related failure in a week. On 30 October, network equipment managed by US-based ARINC (an airline network platform) failed. Communication problems hit 44 airlines, and 11 Chinese carriers lost access to check-in for about five hours.

On 3 November, a failure in the Justice Ministry's passenger pre-check system meant airlines could not receive passenger information for about two hours. Some flights were delayed.

What's next?

The airlines are considering seeking compensation from ARINC for the departure delays. ARINC has promised regular inspections and steps to prevent another network failure.

The airport operator says it considers hacking an unlikely cause of any of the three incidents. In a statement, it promised to work with the relevant agencies to step up checks on departure-related systems and to do its best to prevent a repeat.