Qantas may be flying high following its proposed A$11 billion (US$8.6 billion) takeover by Macquarie Bank Ltd. and Texas Pacific Group Ventures Inc., but faulty server hardware on its Web site has ensured it has come crashing down to reality.
Customers experienced trouble and received server errors when accessing the www.qantas.com.au site late Thursday night.
This was then followed by a temporary page albeit with limited functionality: customers were able to make domestic and international bookings but not packages, car hire or accommodation.
According to Qantas spokesperson the site has experienced "internal technical issues". He said this was due to malfunctioning firewalls. He did not elaborate any further, but said at 12.30AEST that the sight was slowly coming back up to full capacity.
He ruled out a denial of service attack.
The Web site of Qantas's low-cost subsidiary JetStar Airways Pty. Ltd. was fully operational.