Flights were delayed in some European travel hubs, including the continent’s busiest at Heathrow Airport near London, on Saturday after technical problems with check-in systems that two airports attributed to a cyberattack on Friday evening.
At least five airports — Berlin-Brandenburg, Brussels, Dublin, Cork in Ireland and Heathrow — said that the technical issue was affecting departing passengers.
Heathrow and Berlin-Brandenburg, Germany’s third-largest, said the problem was with Collins Aerospace, an American company that provides check-in and boarding systems for it and other airports, causing longer waiting times for passengers.
RTX, the company’s corporate parent, said in a statement on Saturday that there was a “cyber-related disruption” in its systems at some airports and that it was working to restore “full functionality to our customers as quickly as possible.” It added that airport staff could work around the issue by switching to manual check-ins.
In the departure area of Heathrow’s Terminal 3, staff members used megaphones to shepherd crowds of passengers who were waiting for their delayed flights in the departures area. On Saturday morning, some were still waiting to check in for flights that were scheduled to take off within minutes. The airport was still experiencing an average departure delay time of 30 minutes as of early evening in London, according to FlightAware, a flight-tracking website.
Heathrow urged passengers to arrive no earlier than three hours before a long-haul flight or two hours before a domestic flight.
Berlin-Brandenburg said in a statement that the cyberattack had taken place on Friday evening and had not targeted the airport directly.
Collins is an aviation and defense technology business based in Iowa. RTX, its corporate parent, said that the problem was in its MUSE software, a passenger-processing system that Collins said supports around 300 airlines at 100 airports.
“The impact is limited to electronic customer check-in and baggage drop,” RTX said.
FlightAware said that there had been 161 delays and four cancellations at Berlin-Brandenburg; 229 delays and 20 cancellations at Brussels; and 366 delays and 18 cancellations at Heathrow, as of the early evening in Europe.
Brussels Airport said only manual check-in and boarding were available on Saturday. The airport expected the issue to “heavily impact the flight schedule causing delays and cancellations.
Dublin Airport said it was dealing with “minor impacts,” along with Cork Airport, Ireland’s second-biggest after Dublin. Dublin Airport was experiencing an average departure delay time of 51 minutes, and had 212 delays as of the early evening hours in Ireland, according to FlightAware. It is not clear whether the delays were caused by the software issue, or primarily linked to a 90-minute evacuation of Terminal 2 conducted as a security precaution.
The National Cyber Security Center in Britain said in a statement issued on Saturday that it was working with Collins Aerospace and the Department for Transport to understand the impact. Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary of Britain, said on social media that she was “aware of an incident affecting airline check-in and boarding” and was monitoring the situation.
Nazaneen Ghaffar, Lynsey Chutel and Rylee Kirk contributed reporting.
John Yoon is a Times reporter based in Seoul who covers breaking and trending news.
Ashley Ahn covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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