Airline check-in procedures at Incheon Airport return to normal; check-in and ticketing system outage fully restored by 5 p.m.

[Financial News] The outage affecting airline check-in and ticketing systems at Incheon International Airport was fully resolved at 5 p.m. on the 30th. After a global communications network outage began in the early hours, ticketing systems at three Chinese airlines also went down, causing major disruption, with around 1,200 passengers at one point waiting at the airport. Incheon International Airport Corporation said that, with all related systems now fully restored, check-in procedures for all airlines are operating normally.
According to Incheon International Airport Corporation on the 30th, an outage in the U.S. Airlink (ARINC) network that occurred at around 4:30 a.m. that day and an outage in TravelSky’s ticketing system that began at around noon were both fully resolved by 5 p.m. As a result, passenger processing for some airlines, which had been temporarily suspended, also returned to normal.
Because of the ARINC network outage that began in the early hours, communications were intermittently interrupted at a total of 13 airlines: eight at Terminal 1 (T1) and five at Terminal 2 (T2). As the ticketing systems did not operate normally, boarding pass issuance and check-in were delayed, and passengers preparing to depart faced longer waits.
The ARINC network outage was later resolved, but disruptions continued when a separate outage occurred around noon in TravelSky, the ticketing system used by three Chinese airlines based at T1: China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, and Air China.
With regular ticketing operations at these airlines effectively halted, departure procedures were handled through manual check-in. At the time, around 1,200 passengers were estimated to be waiting at the airport to depart.
Long queues also continued at the airport. In particular, the line of China Eastern Airlines passengers using the H check-in counters passed the K counters and stretched as far as the L counters. Some passengers, exhausted from waiting for a long time, were seen sitting down on the floor as they waited for their turn.
Passengers with imminent departure times voiced their frustration, asking the airlines when service would be restored or lodging complaints. One passenger who was due to travel to Egypt via Shanghai, China, said that flight delays had disrupted their connecting plans.
Flight operations were also affected to some extent. Initially, Incheon International Airport Corporation understood that the global communications network outage had not caused flight delays, but it was later reported that some flights were delayed after Chinese airlines’ ticketing operations were halted in the afternoon.
Immediately after the outage occurred, Incheon International Airport Corporation strengthened its on-site response to minimize inconvenience to passengers. It organized queues and kept passenger routes clear, while increasing staffing for security screening in the departure areas. It also asked the Ministry of Justice to deploy additional immigration officers and assigned around 60 additional on-site information and security staff.
Some domestic airlines, including Korean Air, also experienced slower network access that morning, but there were reportedly no major problems with flight operations.
An Incheon International Airport Corporation official said, “As of 5 p.m., all check-in and ticketing system outages have been resolved, and check-in procedures for all airlines are operating normally. We will continue to monitor airport operations and do our utmost to provide stable and smooth service.”

[email protected] Kim Dong-ho Reporter