European flights delayed and cancellations continue after cyberattack

Flights at London Heathrow, Berlin, Brussels, Dublin and Cork Airports were among those affected throughout the weekend, with Brussels Airport in Belgium asking airlines to cancel around 50% of their flights on Monday 22 September (140 of 276 scheduled outbound flights). Berlin and Heathrow Airports both stated that disruption had eased by Monday, although delays and cancellations remained.

Heathrow said most flights were operating by the morning of 21 September, though manual workarounds and longer processing times persisted. There were hours-long queues on Saturday and some 47% of Heathrow's departing flights were delayed, according to flight tracker FlightAware. Additional staff were at hand in check-in areas to help minimise disruption.

At Heathrow, Berlin and Brussels, 29 flight departures and arrivals had been cancelled as of 11:30 GMT on Saturday. Brussels Airport said it had asked airlines to cancel half of their scheduled departing flights on Sunday to avoid long queues and late cancellations.

At Heathrow, 90% of more than 350 flights had been delayed by 15 minutes or more, while six were cancelled by 3pm on Sunday afternoon, according to the data company Flightradar24. The average delay was 34 minutes. Thirteen flights were cancelled on Saturday, although the vast majority of hundreds of flights were delayed.

Collins Aerospace software is responsible for boarding and check in systems. Collins Aerospace owner RTX said on Saturday that it had become aware of a cyber-related disruption to its MUSE software in selected airports, after major European flight hubs flagged delays due to a cyberattack.

Following news of a cyber incident impacting Collins Aerospace, a National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) spokesperson said:

"We are working with Collins Aerospace and affected UK airports, alongside Department for Transport and law enforcement colleagues, to fully understand the impact of an incident.

All organisations are urged to make use of the NCSC’s free guidance, services and tools to help reduce the chances of a cyber attack and bolster their resilience in the face of online threats.