European airports hit by cyberattack, delays set to continue into Sunday

A cyberattack on software used for airline check-in and boarding disrupted travel across several major European airports on Saturday, grounding flights and stranding passengers. London’s Heathrow, the region’s busiest hub, was among those affected, alongside airports in Berlin, Brussels, Dublin and Cork.

The outage was traced to MUSE software supplied by Collins Aerospace, a unit of RTX, which confirmed a “cyber-related disruption” but declined to name the airports impacted. The company said the issue was limited to electronic check-in and baggage drop, with airlines reverting to manual processes.

According to aviation data provider Cirium, nearly 30 flights were cancelled across Heathrow, Berlin and Brussels by late morning. Officials at Brussels Airport said most departures were delayed, with four flights diverted, and advised airlines to cut half of Sunday’s departures to reduce chaos.

Passengers reported confusion, long queues and a lack of clear information. “We were only told there was a technical problem,” one traveller in Berlin told Reuters. “But online, everyone could see it was a cyberattack.”

The European Commission said there was no evidence of a large-scale assault, while cybersecurity experts noted the incident underscored the vulnerability of aviation systems. “This shows just how fragile the digital backbone of air travel can be,” said Rafe Pilling of Sophos.

Neither the attackers nor their motives have been identified. Past reports suggested Collins Aerospace had previously been targeted by ransom-seeking hackers.

Elsewhere, Frankfurt Airport in Germany confirmed it was unaffected. EasyJet reported normal operations, while Delta and United Airlines said delays were minimal. Ryanair and British Airways’ parent IAG did not comment.

Authorities in the UK and Germany said their cyber defence units were monitoring the situation.

Dallas airports recover after separate outage

Meanwhile, in the United States, airports in Dallas returned to normal after a telecommunications failure triggered more than 2,000 flight disruptions on Friday and Saturday.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the outage stemmed from fibre-optic cable damage at Frontier Communications, which supplies services to the Dallas Terminal Radar Approach Control. American Airlines, the largest carrier at Dallas-Fort Worth, cancelled nearly 700 flights across two days and said more than 100,000 passengers were affected. Southwest Airlines reported over 1,300 delays at Dallas Love Field.

The FAA said contractor L3Harris failed to ensure proper redundancies, compounding the failure. American Airlines executives criticised both providers for a lack of urgency in restoring systems.

The incident is the latest in a series of technical failures highlighting vulnerabilities in the US air traffic control network, which Congress recently pledged $12.5 billion to modernise.

Reuters