Emirates flights delayed due to technical glitch

Dubai: Hundreds of Emirates passengers were delayed, some for nearly two hours on Friday morning due to a technical glitch in the airline's system.

An Emirates spokesperson said an "IT fault" impacted check-in and departure of several flights around the network.

A passenger traveling on EK 007 to London, said boarding started at 1.45 pm. "The flight was supposed to take off at 2.30 pm, but it is now 3.36 pm," he said in a sms.

Gulf News was informed that this particular flight finally took off at 4.04 pm.

There were other reports of passengers boarding their flights and just sitting on the tarmac for a long time.

In a statement Emirates said, "The fault was resolved within 90 minutes, however flights arriving late into Dubai had a knock on effect on subsequent flights departing in the morning." It was not immediately know many flights were delayed.

It said that as of Friday afternoon, operations were back to normal. "We regret any inconvenience caused to our passengers," the statement said.

The fault apparently was due to broken fibre optic cable.