Airport software failure may affect Spanish flights

London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Washington-Reagan (USA) have reported 'enormous queues' for several hours due to the booking and check-in programme – known as 'Altea', but with no connection to the Costa Blanca town of the same name – run by technology firm Amadeus having gone down.

Spokespersons from Gatwick and Heathrow say the service is 'gradually being restored', but the knock-on effect of queues building up since early this morning (Thursday) means delays may continue for some time.

Some of the worst-affected flights are those run by Air France, Southwest Air, Qantas, Qatar Airways and British Airways – the latter owned by the IAG group holding company, which Spanish national carrier Iberia belongs to – meaning a few flights heading for Spain may be delayed.

Messages on social media by passengers worldwide warned fellow travellers to get to their airports several hours earlier than planned to avoid missing their flights due to the check-in queues.

Long lines of frustrated passengers have formed at Heathrow's Terminal 2, 3 and 4 – although apparently not Terminal 5 (pictured) - according to a spokesperson, who says the airport is 'working closely' with its airlines to 'help resolve the issue as soon as possible'.

Gatwick's spokesperson claims the Surrey-based airport is less affected, with 'a couple of airlines' suffering problems due to the 'system crash' but with the North and South Terminals' usual operations 'unchanged' and 'functioning normally'.

Amadeus' shares fell by 1.44% on the Ibex-35 at 14.00 today as a result of the software collapse.

It is not known as yet whether the fault is internal or has been caused from outside by hackers.