Coffins, rotting fruit stuck in tarmac tangle after Qantas IT meltdown

Qantas’ freight division has suffered a catastrophic system failure that left dead bodies, live animals and perishable food unable to be collected from airports. Cargo operations were sent into disarray after Qantas attempted to switch on a “new, fully integrated cloud-based” management system on September 24, which “did not go as planned”, according to a letter sent to freight customers. Qantas said that coffins and human remains have not been left on tarmacs or stored inappropriately in any way despite reports from freight forwarders alleging so. “All human remains and other critical freight has been managed according to industry standards and with utmost care as always. Some delays in collection may have occurred due to manual processing leading to queues at freight terminals,” the airline business said on Thursday. The airline’s freight customers said the meltdown has cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past 10 days. Qantas workers have been forced to process shipments manually, causing backlogs of domestic and international deliveries at Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne airports. Cargo customers said they have had to wait for up to a week to collect goods needed by their clients the day after landing in Australia, with unrefrigerated fresh produce and pharmaceuticals ruined.<br/>