Government orders probe after 9-hour system glitch stopped Hong Kong airport display screens from functioning
Hong Kong Free Press
The Hong Kong government has ordered an investigation into a nine-hour system glitch that stopped the airport’s display screens from working on Sunday.
The Airport Authority said the system failure was not due to a cyberattack and apologised for causing inconvenience to passengers. As of Sunday evening, display screens in the terminal were correctly showing flights’ departure gate information, according to local media reports.
“There is no hacking activity we have identified so far. It is not a hacking activity,” said Ricky Leung, an executive director on engineering and technology at the Airport Authority.
“Flight operations were normal throughout the day. There were no flight cancellations or large-scale delays due to the system failure,” Steven Yiu, an executive director on airport operations, said in Cantonese.
The failure occurred at around 7 am on Sunday, with the terminal’s display screens, the airport’s website and its mobile app failing to provide real time updates on flight information.
Large whiteboards with handwritten updates about flights’ departure gate were placed at the airports’ service counters as passengers looked for directions from airport staff.
Local media reported that some passengers missed their flights due to the incident.
The authority urged passengers to allow sufficient time to check-in at the airport and inquire with their airlines for latest flight status throughout Sunday.
Yiu said the glitch with displaying flight information did not affect flight operations because they two were separate systems, adding that the airport handled about 360 flights between 7 am to 3 pm.
The Airport Emergency Centre was activated and the display system was largely restored after “preliminary repairs,” Leung said, adding that the authority would later perform an inspection.
The Transport and Logistics Bureau said on Sunday that transport chief Lam Sai-hung was very concerned about the glitch and that he had demanded the Airport Authority to investigate the incident and file a report.
This is the second major incident within a week at the Hong Kong airport, after one of its runway was forced to close as a cargo plane burst a tyre upon making an emergency return last Monday.
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