Authorities claim Swiss airspace reopened Wednesday morning after a computer failure caused planes across the Alpine nation to be halted for several hours.
Inbound and outbound flights in Switzerland were halted and the Swiss Airspace station was shut down due to technical errors in the computer at the air traffic control service. Officials do not seem to know the exact reason for these technical errors but fortunately, the issue was resolved and the flights were resumed. Flightradar24 tweeted the following to explain the issue concerning the glitch and the system failure.
Inbound long-haul flights were redirected to airports in neighbouring countries, including Milan, Vienna, and Lyon, while short-haul planes were unable to depart, according to Swiss.
Skyguide on Twitter announced that the issue of the malfunctioning system has been resolved and that the flights are resuming. “The technical malfunction at Skyguide has been resolved. The airspace closure was lifted at 8.30 am. Swiss airspace is now open again and air traffic over Switzerland and operations at the national airports of Geneva and Zurich are resuming.”
However, it did not specify what caused the malfunction that forced Swiss airspace to be closed for several hours: “Air travel over Switzerland and operations at the national airports of Geneva and Zurich are resumed,” the statement released on Wednesday morning added.
Meanwhile, passengers from Zurich started Tweeting about the difficulties they faced.
One of the passengers Tweeted the picture of flights in a grounded state asking authorities for the updates. “@skyguide is there an update regarding the airspace surveillance failure? #zrh” he wrote.
After the issue was resolved skyguide once again took it to Twitter apologizing for the inconvenience the passengers faced due to the malfunctioning computer. It said “Skyguide regrets this incident and its consequences for its customers and partners, as well as for the passengers at the two national airports. We are doing everything in our power to handle the flights efficiently and to keep delays to a minimum,” the air navigation service provider tweeted.
