European airports face ongoing disruption after weekend cyber-attack on check-in systems

Disruption across Europe persisted Monday after a weekend cyber-attack disrupted automatic check-in and boarding software used at several major airports. Brussels Airport announced that airlines should cancel nearly half of their outbound flights on Monday, with about 140 of 276 scheduled departures called off, as carriers work to restore systems and manage manually where possible.

In a Monday update, Collins Aerospace said it was in the final stages of software updates needed to resolve the outage. Brussels Airport said the service provider is actively working on the issue, but it remained unclear when the problem would be fully resolved. The scale of the impact meant passengers faced delays and new travel plans across multiple hubs.

Heathrow Airport in London said efforts to resolve the issue were ongoing and apologized to customers who faced delays, stressing that the vast majority of flights had continued to operate and advising passengers to check their flight status before traveling. The BBC reported that about half of the airlines flying from Heathrow were back online in some form by Sunday, including British Airways, which has been operating on a backup system since Saturday.

At Berlin Brandenburg Airport, a spokesperson said some airlines were still boarding passengers manually and there was no indication of how long the electronic outage would last. A spokesperson for the UK's National Cyber Security Centre said it was working with Collins Aerospace, affected UK airports, the Department for Transport and law enforcement to fully understand the incident's impact. UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was aware of the incident and was receiving regular updates as the situation evolved.

Across the European Union, officials sought to assess the broader risk. The European Commission said it was closely monitoring the cyber-attack but noted there was no indication that it had been widespread or severe. Industry observers have noted that cyberattacks in the aviation sector have surged in recent months, with a Thales report estimating a roughly 600% increase in such incidents over the past year.

As airports and airlines work to restore routine operations, officials cautioned that disruptions could continue into Monday in some locations. Travelers are urged to monitor status updates from their airlines and airports and to allow extra time for security checks and boarding as systems come back online.