Computer glitch causes chaos at Taiwan airport (Roundup)

Jan 6, 2009, 11:00 GMT

   Taipei - A computer breakdown at Taipei's international airport that caused chaos and forced immigration officials to hand-record departing passengers' data and passengers to form long queues was finally fixed on Tuesday, officials said.

   'After repair and testing, both the computer systems at Terminal One and Terminal Two of the airport have resumed normal operation,' said Chung Ching-kun, a spokesman of the National Immigration Agency.

   The computer glitch, which lasted 36 hours since early Monday morning, prompted Immigration Minister Hsieh Li-kung to show up at the Taoyuan International Airport near Taipei to supervise repair work.

   'We will do all we can to resolve the problem as soon as possible,' he told reporters at the airport.

   He said to prevent blacklisted or criminal suspects from seizing the opportunity to flee Taiwan, his agency had provided copies of the list of suspects barred from leaving Taiwan to all immigration officials operating at the immigration counters for identification.

   Chung said immigration authorities would immediately conduct computer checks of some 40,000 hand-recorded data entries made by immigration officials in the past 36 hours for comparison with the blacklist.

   As queues of departing passengers became longer, the airport had opened all its 48 counters at Terminal One and 42 counters at Terminal Two to speed up customs clearance and prevent flight delays, airport officials said.

   Monday's computer glitch came one day after the baggage-handling system at the airport's Terminal Two malfunctioned, causing more than 100 pieces of luggage to miss flights.