Japan Air Traffic in Trouble

Air traffic havoc in Japan caused by a computer malfunction continued into its second day Sunday, causing at least 10 flights to be canceled and dozens of others to be delayed about up to two hours, airline and airport officials said.

At Tokyo's Haneda airport, about 1,000 travelers unable to take their connecting flights stayed overnight at the airport terminal building to take early morning flights Sunday and hotel reservation counters were packed with people trying to secure rooms by late Saturday night.

The computer glitch caused cancellations of 203 flights and delays of more than 30 minutes in 1,443 flights, with the maximum delay of six hours and 50 minutes, on Saturday, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

The trouble affected about 273,000 people, including 39,900 people forced to give up their travel plans due to the cancellations, the ministry said.

The computer malfunction hit the flight data system and its backup system at the ministry's Tokyo Air Traffic Control Center in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, at around 7 a.m. Saturday, stopping flight departures across Japan for about 20 minutes. The last time both systems went down simultaneously was in January 1998.

Henry L. Marconi PRAVDA.Ru Sydney