Computer glitch delays Lufthansa flights

The Associated Press

FRANKFURT, Germany (December 5, 2000 11:59 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - A computer glitch at Deutsche Telekom AG, the country's former telephone monopoly, delayed hundreds of Lufthansa flights across Germany, Austria and the United States for up to half an hour Tuesday.

The problem affected check-in counters in Frankfurt, Munich, Duesseldorf, Hanover, Berlin, Vienna, and a few in the United States, said Lufthansa spokeswoman Karin Weber, although she could not specify which U.S. airports those were.

In Frankfurt, the continent's biggest airport, 440 Lufthansa flights were delayed by an average of 20 minutes. The problem emerged early in the morning and was cleared up around 10 a.m., late enough to disrupt the day's flight schedule.

Lufthansa computers at the airport had been cut off from the airline's accounting center since midnight due to a system failure at a Deutsche Telekom relay station, said Deutsche Telekom spokesman Stephan Broszio. He said the cause of the shutdown was being investigated.

Deutsche Telekom, which is still 58 percent owned by the German government, has a history of butting heads with regulators over service-related issues such as collecting competitors' long distance fees and introducing flat-rate Internet access.

http://www.nandotimes.com/global/story/0,1024,500286817-500453108-502969257-0,00.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), December 06, 2000