(Alliance News) - Irish airline Aer Lingus has apologised to customers after a major technical failure meant it had to cancel all flights from Dublin Airport to UK or European destinations after 2pm.
Footage on social media showed thousands of people queueing outside Terminal 2 at the airport after digital systems failed.
The airline, part of International Consolidated Airlines Group SA, said that customers affected by the disruption will be able to change their travel plans free of charge.
A statement said: "Due to a major incident with a network provider, our cloud-based systems enabling check-in, boarding and our website are currently unavailable.
"A UK network provider servicing the cloud-based system has experienced a major break in connectivity impacting both primary and secondary connectivity.
"At this time the provider has not been able to give Aer Lingus an estimate of the time when the break in connectivity will be restored.
"Unfortunately, this is causing severe disruption to Aer Lingus services today.
"Consequently, all flights originally scheduled to depart from Dublin Airport for European and UK destinations from 2pm onwards today have had to be cancelled."
The airline said it was unable to communicate directly with customers on these flights but asked them not to travel to the airport.
The airline said: "We sincerely apologise to all customers impacted by today's disruption and cancellations.
"Any customer impacted by today's disruptions will be able to change their travel plans, free of charge either through our call centre or social media channels.
"We will advise customers when IT systems are restored and this change option is fully available to our customers.
"As soon as systems are restored our teams will work to re-accommodate those impacted as efficiently as possible, and share information regarding customers' rights and the airlines' obligations.
"We are working intensively with our system partners and their network partners to resolve the connection issues as soon as possible."
In a tweet, Dublin Airport said impacted passengers should contact the airline directly about next steps.
The airport also said that no other airlines are affected.
Customers reported long queues at the airport on Saturday as Aer Lingus check in for earlier flights was being handled manually.
By Jonathan McCambridge, PA
source: PA
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