Lines snaked around airports last night as an unexplained glitch in the Sabre system caused dozens of flights to be canceled or delayed.
American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, Virgin and Etihad Airlines lost their connection to Sabre for about four hours, from about 9:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m.
At least three airlines – Alaska, Virgin Australia and Abu Dhabi-based Etihad – took to issuing their boarding passes using pen and paper.
London Heathrow had minor delays on two Virgin Atlantic departures to the United States.
Virgin Australia, though, was forced to cancel at least 12 domestic departures from Sydney, at least eight from Melbourne and at least four from Perth, reports say. It urged passengers to consider staying home and traveling another day.
Sabre apologized for the disruption, saying in a statement, "Sabre customers were unable to connect to our system for a period of time this evening. This has been restored and everyone is now able to connect to Sabre. We apologize and regret the inconvenience caused."
