Some of Europe’s busiest airports were working to restore normal operations on Sunday after a cyberattack disrupted automatic check-in systems, forcing airlines to cancel flights and leaving passengers facing long queues and delays.
The outage began on Friday when hackers targeted Collins Aerospace, a subsidiary of RTX, which provides check-in and boarding software for several major airlines. The disruption hit London’s Heathrow, Berlin Brandenburg, and Brussels Airport, with Brussels worst affected.
By Sunday, officials in Berlin and Heathrow said delays had eased significantly, though some passengers still reported longer-than-usual waiting times. Heathrow confirmed “the vast majority of flights have continued to operate,” while Berlin said manual workarounds were in place for check-in and baggage handling.
In Brussels, however, disruptions persisted. Airport authorities cancelled 50 of Sunday’s 257 departures and ordered airlines to cut Monday’s flight schedule by half after Collins Aerospace failed to deliver an updated secure version of its software.
RTX acknowledged the breach affected its MUSE platform but said manual check-in processes had helped mitigate the impact. The company confirmed it was in the “final stages” of restoring full functionality.
Aviation analytics firm Cirium reported delays were “low” at Heathrow, “moderate” in Berlin, but “significant” in Brussels.
The European aviation regulator said investigations were underway to trace the hackers, as the attack comes amid a series of high-profile cyber incidents across industries, including recent breaches at Jaguar Land Rover and retailer Marks & Spencer.
