Virgin Blue booking systems offline

Virgin Blue has axed 16 flights today as it upgrades its booking and check-in systems in the wake of a major IT failure last month.

Online and telephone reservations services, as well as web and kiosk check-in services were scheduled to be offline until 5am tomorrow as part of the upgrade.

The airline claimed there were "no major delays or long queues at airports" today as a result of the IT maintenance work.

Its web check-in service carried an image of a computer with a yellow post-it note taped to the front promising the service would be "back soon".

Virgin Blue blamed IT outsourcer Navitaire for the initial reservations and check in systems outage that left thousands of passengers stranded.