A cyberattack on a provider of check-in and boarding systems has disrupted operations at several major European airports, including London’s Heathrow, the continent’s busiest, causing flight delays and cancellations on Saturday.
Collins Aerospace, which provides systems for several airlines at airports globally, is experiencing a technical issue that may cause delays for departing passengers, Heathrow Airport said, having warned of delays.
Brussels Airport and Berlin Airport were also affected by the attack, they said in separate statements.
RTX RTX.N, Collins Aerospace’s parent company, said it had become aware of a “cyber-related disruption” to its software at selected airports, without naming them.
Hours later, Dublin Airport said it was also facing minor impact from the issue, along with Cork Airport, Ireland’s second biggest after Dublin.
“The impact is limited to electronic customer check-in and baggage drop and can be mitigated with manual check-in operations,” RTX said in an e-mailed statement, adding that it was working to fix the issue as quickly as possible. It did not give any information on who might be behind the attack.
A spokesperson for the European Commission said there were currently no indications of a “widespread or severe attack” and that the origin of the incident was still under investigation.
At Heathrow, Berlin and Brussels, 29 departures and arrivals have been cancelled so far, aviation data provider Cirium said. In total, 651 departures were scheduled from Heathrow, 228 from Brussels and 226 from Berlin on Saturday.
These kinds of sweeping outages are typically the result of either ransomware attacks, where online extortionists paralyze corporate networks in the hope of payment, or deliberate sabotage.
Hisham Al Assam, who teaches computer science at the University of Buckingham, said the incident underscored how the use of common digital infrastructure can lead to “single points of failure.”
“Such models turn efficiency into fragility, where a single compromise can disrupt several airlines at once,” he said.
Large impact on flight schedule
Several breach-tracking websites have previously said that Collins Aerospace was hit by ransom-seeking hackers in 2023. The company did not return a message seeking comment on those allegations or details about Saturday’s incident.
Germany’s federal office for information security, the BSI, said it was in touch with Berlin Airport over “infrastructure disruptions” as a result of an outage affecting a global system for handling passengers.
Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre said it was working with Collins Aerospace and affected U.K. airports to fully understand the incident’s impact.
Brussels Airport said on its website it was having to use manual check-in and boarding procedures, adding the incident occurred on Friday night.
“This has a large impact on the flight schedule and will unfortunately cause delays and cancellations,” it said.
The airport said that 10 flights had been cancelled so far, with an average delay of one hour for all departing flights.
Passengers left in the dark
Passengers with a flight scheduled for Saturday were advised by the affected airports to confirm their travel with airlines before heading to the airport.
Tereza Pultarova, a journalist, spoke to BBC News from inside Heathrow, where she was due to fly to Amsterdam at 6:30 a.m. for a connecting flight to Cape Town.
“Unfortunately, the airline I’m with … they don’t have a service desk here, so we’ve been left in the dark,” she said. “It’s been a great chaos, and it’s been quite … frustrating for most people here,” she said.
Berlin Airport said on its website that there were longer waiting times at check-in and it was working on a quick solution. Frankfurt Airport, Germany’s largest, was not affected, a spokesperson said.
At Berlin Airport, Kim Reisen was struggling with delays and a lack of clarity, telling Reuters they had only been told there was “a technical fault.”
Another traveller, Siegfried Schwarz, also from Berlin, said: “I … find it inexplicable that, with today’s technology, there’s no way to defend yourself against something like that.”
EasyJet operating as normal
EasyJet, among Europe’s biggest airlines, said it was currently operating as normal and did not expect the issue to impact its flights for the rest of the day.
The owners of Ryanair and British Airways did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
U.S. carrier Delta Air Lines said it expected minimal impact to flights departing from the three affected airports, adding it had implemented a workaround to minimize disruption. United Airlines said the issue was “causing minor departure delays,” but it had not cancelled any flights.
There were no indications of threats to Polish airports, deputy prime minister and digital affairs minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said.
British Transport Minister Heidi Alexander said she was receiving regular updates on the situation.
