Passengers are facing another day of disruption at several European airports, including London Heathrow, after an alleged cyber attack targeted a service provider for check-in and boarding systems.
Heathrow, Brussels and Berlin airports all experienced delays and disruption on Saturday following the “technical issue” affecting Collins Aerospace, which works for several airlines at multiple airports across the world.
The disruption began on Friday night and continued throughout Saturday, with flights cancelled or delayed as the impacted airlines had to carry out check-in and boarding operations manually.
Passengers due to fly from the airport’s Terminal 4 said they were met with queues, delays and confusion as to whether they’d be able to make their planned trips.
There was a small amount of disruption going into Sunday afternoon, with about seven departing flights cancelled and 18 more delayed, although it is not clear which of these were caused by the technical issue.
Heathrow said on Sunday that passengers should check their flight status before travelling to the west London airport.
“Work continues to resolve and recover from Friday’s outage of a Collins Aerospace airline system that impacted check-in,” Heathrow said.
“We apologise to those who have faced delays, but by working together with airlines, the vast majority of flights have continued to operate.
“We encourage passengers to check the status of their flight before travelling to Heathrow and to arrive no earlier than three hours for long-haul flights and two hours for short-haul.”
It is understood British Airways at Terminal 5 remains unaffected and has been operating as normal.
Brussels Airport seems to have been hit the hardest, with considerable disruption leading to delays and the cancellation of 50 outbound flights on Sunday, the AP news agency reported.
The airport further asked airlines to cancel nearly 140 outbound flights for Monday – which represents half of the 276 flights that were scheduled to depart from Brussels that day, according to AP.
Brussels Airport said it nonetheless was able to maintain 85% of scheduled departures over the weekend thanks to the deployment of extra staff by airport partners “and the fact that self bag drop and online check-in are still operational”, AP said.
Brussels Airport said on Sunday: “As a result of a cyberattack on the external service provider of the check-in and boarding systems, check-in operations at several European airports, including Brussels Airport, are heavily disrupted.
“The service provider is actively working on the issue and trying to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.
“This has a large impact on the flight schedule and will, unfortunately, cause delays and cancellations of flights.”
A statement on the Berlin Airport website said there were longer waiting times at check-in.
Collins Aerospace said on Saturday it was working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
It said: “We have become aware of a cyber-related disruption to our Muse (multi-user system environment) software in select airports.
“We are actively working to resolve the issue and restore full functionality to our customers as quickly as possible.
“The impact is limited to electronic customer check-in and baggage drop and can be mitigated with manual check-in operations.”
The European Commission, which takes part in managing airspace across Europe, said it is monitoring the situation but added there were no signs the alleged cyber attack was “widespread or severe”.
A spokesperson for the European Commission said on Saturday evening: “The commission is closely monitoring the cyber attack that has disrupted airline check-in and boarding systems for several airlines across multiple airports globally.
“While passengers are facing disruption, aviation safety and air traffic control remain unaffected.
“The commission is working closely with EUROCONTROL, ENISA, airports and airlines to restore operations and to support passengers.
“Current signs do not indicate a widespread or severe attack.”
