Tech glitch delays easyJet flight over ticket scanner failures
An electronic ticket in the app is a great convenience for passengers, but recently, this advantage turned out to be a significant problem on the Canary Island of Gran Canaria.
EasyJet passengers queued at the gate displayed on the board during their flight from Gran Canaria to Berlin on 8th December. When it was time to board the plane, it suddenly became evident that the system had malfunctioned, and passengers had to move to another entrance at the terminal hurriedly.
Ironically, this did not speed things up. When airport staff began checking tickets, it became clear that neither of the two scanners at this checkpoint was working, and an error appeared on the computer screen each time. Calls to the airport manager's headquarters and IT support were of no assistance.
Priority for those with printed boarding passes
The helpless and slightly stressed airport staff had to implement a different procedure. The division between passengers with boarding priority and without was abandoned. Priority boarding was given to those with a printed ticket in paper form.
Next, individuals with tickets in the app on their phone had to wait longer in the queue.
One of the passengers said they bought tickets for a dozen people, which only he had on his phone. There was a problem because none had them printed.
Manually entering numbers
After presenting the ticket on the smartphone, staff had to manually enter passengers' data into the computer to verify each one. If this were not possible, a full list of passengers would be printed in accordance with the procedure, and everything would then be checked individually.
Moreover, they opted to forego luggage dimension checks to avoid escalating the situation and to allow passengers to board the plane as quickly as possible.
However, due to the scanner malfunction, the flight was almost an hour late, departing from the airport in Gran Canaria.
