The global computer outage could not have come at a worse time for the travel industry in the Netherlands. This weekend, the north of the Netherlands will also be on holiday, making it one of the busiest weeks of the year at Schiphol. “It’s the middle of the summer holidays. This couldn’t have come at a worse time’, says ANVR director Frank Radstake to TravMagazine on Friday afternoon from Schiphol. He speaks of a disaster for travelers concerned. ‘The differences are huge. There are people who are simply leaving, other flights are delayed, while there are also flights that have been cancelled. If you’re delayed, you’ll still leave. But if your flight is canceled, you’ll need to be rebooked to later. Because it is one of the busiest periods when people go on holiday, the impact is huge.’ Radstake adds: ‘The queues at the check-in desks are huge, although there is a walk-through. There are no queues at security. People whose flights are delayed can usually still leave. But those whose flights have been cancelled will have to be rebooked. Of course, this requires sufficient capacity for the departing flights in the coming days to accommodate everyone.’
Compliment Radstake compliments Schiphol.
‘The airport is doing everything it can to manage the situation. There are many employees with vests on the floor to answer questions from travelers. It seems that a lot of office staff have also been deployed to help.’ Radstake: ‘Despite everything, the atmosphere is quite relaxed, although of course there is frustration among people whose flights are cancelled. But passengers also understand that this is a case of force majeure. No one can do anything about this. Travellers wait patiently in the queues and see that progress is slowly but surely being made.’ Radstake says it hopes that the problems will be solved quickly and that operations at Schiphol can be restarted soon.
“The people whose flights were cancelled today still have to get on the road. Travel companies still have a lot of work ahead of them to rebook these travellers.’ The global computer outages are the result of issues with cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike’s software. This can cause malfunctions with Windows computers. Airports and airlines, among others, have been affected. (Archive photo TravMagazine).
