AirAsia Overcomes Global IT Disruption, Successfully Completes 3,000 Flights

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Since experiencing a global IT disruption last Friday, which affected its Departure Control Systems (DCS) and led to extensive manual processing, AirAsia has managed to transport over 500,000 passengers across 3,000 flights. The outage, which caused significant flight delays for two days, has now been fully resolved, allowing the airline to return to regular operations and focus on assisting those affected throughout the weekend.

Due to the need for rigorous adherence to safety, security, and immigration regulations during manual processing, passengers faced lengthy waits for individual verification. Despite these challenges and a high traffic volume over the weekend, AirAsia efficiently executed more than 99% of its scheduled flights.

Group CEO of AirAsia Aviation Group, Bo Lingam said: “We are grateful to have been able to connect over half a million guests across our 130 destination network when the world was reeling from the impact of the global IT outage. Thanks to the presence of a robust Business Continuity Plan and the timely decision to switch to a standalone manual mode, guests were able to continue on their journeys safely. However this meant navigating the delays of meticulous manual processing. As an airline, our Business Continuity Plan is focused on supporting continuity in any scenario, as long as there is compliance with laid down safety and security measures. We had the systems, people and processes to be able to switch to manual with agility, and a robust ground plan to support our guests.”

Over the course of the three days, the airline reinforced its operational bandwidth across all verticals in multiple hubs to meet the surge in demand and ensure that guests reached their destinations. In addition to the full force of its ground staff, the airline also swiftly mobilised hundreds of Allstars volunteers to support the situation, whilst working with airport authorities.

“Most importantly, we are humbled by the trust and cooperation from our guests who supported our standalone processes. We thank them for their patience, resilience and understanding during this global disruption. Manoeuvring this unprecedented incident also required concerted effort from all parties.  We record our appreciation to the Ministry of Transport of Malaysia, Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM), Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB), Immigration Department of Malaysia, Royal Malaysian Customs Department and all relevant ministries as well as agencies for their support and assistance.” 

Bo commended the Allstar spirit over the weekend from ground staff, ICT teams, security personnel and hundreds of volunteers and teams who worked around the clock to keep things running. “Thanks to our AirAsia Allstars across the Group, we are now back to normal systems-wise. Once our service recovery is completed, we are looking forward to climbing back to pre-outage On-Time Performance of above 80%.”