McCarran monkey wrench: Network outage that caused long lines, manual check-in was biggest crash in three years

McCarran International Airport’s information technology experts are continuing to investigate what caused Thursday’s computer network crash that slowed the printing of boarding passes and tickets and caused dozens of passengers on all airlines to miss their morning flights.

A McCarran spokeswoman said the network outage lasted from about 8-10:30 a.m., and the system was running normally by 11:30 a.m.

Late Thursday, airlines had no count on how many people missed flights or were affected by the problem, but witnesses said passenger check-in lines wound through the terminal and out the doors to the curbside check-in. Some airlines were distributing free drink vouchers to inconvenienced passengers. McCarran doesn’t track passengers through the boarding process.

When the computer problem became evident, several airline customer service representatives began processing boarding passes and tickets manually.

McCarran spokeswoman Christine Crews said the airport’s IT staff worked through the afternoon to determine the cause of the crash. She said the airport’s common-use technology — a time- and money-saving system McCarran has had for years — resulted in all airlines being affected by the network crash.

The airport's Common Use Terminal Equipment technology, known as CUTE, enables any airline to switch to any ticket counter or gate with just a few key strokes on a computer. It also enables passengers from multiple airlines to print boarding passes from a single kiosk.

But because the airlines all are connected to the same network, any problem with that network affects them all.

McCarran was the first airport in the country to deploy CUTE technology, but it has since been adopted by many other airports nationwide.

McCarran officials used social media and the airport website to encourage passengers to print their boarding passes at home and arrive at the airport early.

Although employees at the airport said computer crashes occur, crews said the last time McCarran had a network crash of that magnitude was three years ago. In the past year, individual airlines, including United and Southwest, and the nation’s air-traffic control system have had computer glitches that have resulted in flight delays.

Crews said flight departures and arrivals were not affected by the problem, but many passengers still missed flights because they were stuck in line.

Calls to individual airlines seeking comment about how the incident affected their operations were not returned Thursday afternoon.

A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said the matter wasn’t an FAA issue.