A widespread technical outage has caused disruptions at airports around the country.
The I.T. problem has prevented Airservices Australia – the government organisation that controls air traffic – from processing flight plans automatically.
Staff have switched to completing the flight plans manually, which has significantly slowed down the process and caused major delays across all Australian airlines.
Airservices Australia said the issue originated at its Melbourne Air Traffic Control Centre.
This facility is responsible for the ‘safe and orderly flow’ of planes across the southern half of the country.
Perth and Adelaide airports have also been affected.
‘Safety, air traffic control and communication between air traffic controllers and aircraft are unaffected,’ it said.
Virgin Australia said it was experiencing delays across multiple flights.
Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide airports were affected by a major technical glitch on Tuesday night
Some of its planes have been grounded as they were unable to lodge flights plans.
It remains unclear if flights will be affected when airports reopen in the morning.
‘Passengers are encouraged to check with their airlines,’ Airservices Australia said.
