Happy hens fly out for party after IT issues split group

A group of women on a hen do who were split up due to flight disruption caused by global IT problems are set to be reunited.

Some processes at East Midlands Airport, like check-in and boarding, had to be done manually after a defect in a software update by cyber-security firm Crowdstrike caused worldwide issues.

The 13-strong group were set to fly from the airport to Dublin, but six of them who needed to check in luggage were delayed and missed their flight.

Undeterred, they were able to secure a later flight and are set to meet up with the bride-to-be and six others who departed earlier on Friday.

Anna Hindmarsh was part of the six that missed the original flight.

She told the BBC she was "really disheartened".

"They didn't get the paperwork in time for our flight," she said.

But the group - including the maid of honour - were determined to make it and managed to catch a later flight for the four-day hen celebration.

They will join the rest of the party on Friday night after a long wait in the airport.

The hens who made it to Dublin earlier had told their stranded friends they were "cracking on".

Earlier, airport spokesperson Ioan Reed-Aspley told the BBC the outage appeared to have affected the IT system used by ground handling agent Swissport to check in passengers and board them on to aircraft.

He said: "That's obviously done digitally normally but their IT systems are down so those processes are having to be done manually.

"Fortunately for us most of our departures have taken place this morning. We have a couple of aircraft on the ground at the moment but the vast majority of passengers have gone."

A spokesperson for the airport later said no flight cancellations were anticipated but added that some delays were possible.

Some retailers at the airport have been unable to process card payments because of the issue.

The outage has caused international disruption across businesses and government agencies, and disruption in the region, with GP practices, bus stops and hospitals affected.

On Friday, the cyber-security firm Crowdstrike admitted the problem was caused by an update to its antivirus software, which is designed to protect Microsoft Windows devices from malicious attacks.

Microsoft has said it is taking "mitigation action" to deal with "the lingering impact" of the outage.

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