[Anchor]
Passengers experienced major disruptions today (October 30) after airline ticketing systems at Incheon International Airport suffered a massive breakdown. Some 1,200 boarding passengers were unable to receive their tickets, leaving them stranded at the airport for hours.
First, we have a report from Jeon Hyeong-u.
[Reporter]
Passengers are crowded around the check-in counters at Incheon Airport.
Long queues have formed for check-in, and exhausted passengers can be seen sitting on the floor with their luggage beside them.
At around 4:30 a.m. today, a glitch occurred in the computer networks used by airlines for ticket issuance.
The network is managed by the U.S. company Airlink, and intermittent communication disruptions occurred across a total of 13 airlines, including 8 at Terminal 1 and 5 at Terminal 2.
However, by the afternoon, ticketing operations for three carriers—China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, and Air China—were completely halted.
Departures for a total of 35 flights were delayed, including a flight to Hangzhou originally scheduled to leave at 12:30 p.m. and a flight to Shanghai scheduled for 12:55 p.m.
Around 1,200 passengers utilizing the affected airlines were temporarily stranded at the airport.
[Gong Sun-mi / Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi Province: I arrived at 11 a.m. My departure time was scheduled for 2:30 p.m. I came a bit early, but I am just stuck waiting here without being able to go anywhere.]
[Son Ho-young / Suwon, Gyeonggi Province: My flight is at 4 p.m., and I came early to get through security quickly. I planned to go inside and get things done, but right now I can't do anything.]
Some passengers were also seen protesting against the airline representatives.
["You need to find a solution quickly!"]
For certain passengers with imminent departures, some airlines resorted to manually writing names and seat numbers on boarding passes to issue them on a limited basis.
The ticketing system failure was restored around 5 p.m., more than 12 hours after it first occurred.
(Video by: Lee Sang-hak | Video Editing by: Lee So-young | VJ: Jeong Han-uk)
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[Anchor]
Let's cross over to our reporter stationed at Incheon Airport to see if the situation has been resolved.
Jeon Hyeong-u, we heard reports that recovery has begun, but the lines still look quite long over there.
[Reporter]
Yes, they have shortened a bit, but there are still many passengers left.
People are still standing in long lines at every counter visible behind me.
Ticketing resumed around 5 p.m., which was 12 hours after the problem first arose, and processing is currently underway.
Even so, hundreds of passengers remain, meaning the ripple effects are continuing.
[Anchor]
There have been a lot of hacking incidents lately. Is it possible that today's ticketing system was hacked?
[Reporter]
Incheon International Airport Corporation handles the management.
To give you the conclusion first, they state that the possibility of hacking is low.
They are placing significant weight on the fact that only certain airlines experienced problems.
They have initially assessed that the incident was caused by network instability at the U.S. company that manages this ticketing system.
Of course, they have not completely ruled out the possibility of a cyberattack, and they plan to continue their investigation.
Above all, ticketing is still heavily backlogged, starting with flights that were scheduled to depart at 1:30 p.m.
The plan is to quickly handle the aftermath with the primary goal of getting these delayed flights off the ground first.
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