2023-08-04 00:42:44
Delayed flights, some forced to take off without checked baggage, especially to overseas: an “unprecedented breakdown” of more than 12 hours disrupted Paris-Orly airport on Thursday, in the middle of the summer peak period. This computer failure, which affected some 10,000 passengers and 40 flights, was observed before dawn on Thursday, when the baggage handling facilities in Terminal 4 of the second French airport started up.
Air Caraïbes and French Bee planes had to take off on Thursday without checked baggage, Marc Rochet, the leader of these companies, told AFP, referring to a “critical situation”. This breakdown, which occurs “in the peak” summer period, “creates a lot of disorder”, he lamented to AFP, evaluating at “between one hour and three hours” the take-off delays for his planes.
An “unprecedented breakdown” causing a “mess” and “significant delays” at departure in the middle of the summer peak period: the second French airport, Paris-Orly, was disrupted on Thursday by a malfunction in the baggage handling system.
The causes of this breakdown, observed when the platform opened before dawn, were still not identified at the start of the afternoon, according to an airport source. Estimating that “about 10,000 passengers” traveling on 40 flights were affected, the airport manager, Groupe ADP, spoke of an “unprecedented breakdown” and assured that technical teams were hard at work.
“Outage in progress in the Orly 4 baggage handling system”, explained ADP in a message on Twitter renamed X, specifying that the other terminals of Orly, the second French airport platform after Paris-Charles-de- Gaulle, were not concerned.
Terminal 4 welcomes companies serving overseas or foreign countries, in particular the Maghreb. Of “all the flights departing from T4 since this morning, many are late, significant delays, an hour or more,” the airport source explained. “All baggage is not processed as quickly as it should be because the vast majority is processed by hand,” she added. Consequence: “a lot of luggage is stored, with passengers leaving but not the luggage”.
Air Caraïbes and French Bee planes had to take off on Thursday without checked baggage, indicated for his part to AFP Marc Rochet, the leader of these companies, evoking a “critical situation”. This breakdown, which occurs “during peak periods” in the summer, “creates a lot of disorder”, he lamented to AFP, evaluating the take-off delays for his planes at “between one and three hours”.
Regarding the luggage left at Orly, “we will be forced to redirect them within 24 hours, and we already apologize to our customers”, added Mr. Rochet. “We had no other possibility, otherwise we completely blocked the system”, he justified. Even if all the available teams are mobilized to adapt the device and minimize the disturbances, “it is not the breakdown of a luggage belt which must block a French airport of the importance of Orly”, regretted the manager of ‘business.
According to ADP, which also apologized for the inconvenience caused, “workarounds have been put in place in collaboration with the companies and the assistants, for example the postponement of flights on Orly 1, 2 and 3”.
“Some flights may also be transferred to Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport”, according to the manager, while the airport source conceded that the schedule for “return to normal (was) unknown at the time current”.
“What is happening at Orly is not acceptable, we cannot have hours of problems sorting luggage”, reacted the Minister Delegate for Transport Clément Beaune Thursday afternoon during a visit to the station of the Nord de Paris “I know that all the teams are mobilized to repair the technical problem”, added Mr. Beaune, who had presented in mid-July a series of commitments with a view to improving the quality of service in the French airports, in particular with a view to the 2024 Olympic Games. “It is exactly this kind of very concrete point that we must monitor”, said Mr. Beaune: “a link in the chain that jumps, you have a very great difficulty”.
This incident broke out when the summer in Paris airports had started better than in 2022, with operations generally fluid despite traffic levels close to 2019, before the health crisis.
A year ago, 35,000 pieces of luggage were “lost” after a three-hour strike by ADP employees at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle.
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