European airports hit by cyber-related disruption, causing delays

Updated 2.57pm

Major European airports including Brussels, Berlin and London's Heathrow were Saturday hit by "cyber-related disruption" affecting automated check-in and baggage drop systems and causing delays.

"We have become aware of a cyber-related disruption to our MUSE software in select airports," airport service provider Collins Aerospace said.

At least three busy European air hubs reported facing disruption and warned of flight delays and cancellations.

"The impact is limited to electronic customer check-in and baggage drop and can be mitigated with manual check-in operations," Collins Aerospace added.

At least 10 flights were cancelled out of Brussels Airport and another 17 delayed by over an hour after the system was hit by a "cyberattack" overnight on Friday, the airport said.

The airport said the issue had not been solved by Saturday morning and was having a "large impact" on flight schedules.

According to the BBC, aviation watchdog Eurocontrol said airlines had been asked to cancel half their flights to and from the airport between 4:00 am GMT on Saturday and 2:00 am GMT on Sunday because of the incident.

Only manual check-in and boarding was taking place at the Brussels air hub, which advised passengers flying on Saturday to check their flight status with airlines before going to the airport.

London's Heathrow Airport, the busiest in Europe, said its check-in and boarding systems, also provided by Collins Aerospace, were hit by a "technical issue" that "may cause delays for departing passengers".

A banner on the Berlin Airport website read: "due to a technical issue at a system provider operating across Europe, there are longer waiting times at check-in."

A spokesperson from the Malta International Airport told Times of Malta the airport was not hit by the cyberattack, but is monitoring the situation closely. 

"However, passengers travelling to Malta through impacted airports are being advised by said airports to contact their airline to check the status of their flight."

Collins Aerospace said it was "actively working to resolve the issue and restore full functionality to our customers as quickly as possible".

The aviation tech company, which specialises in digital and data processing services, is a subsidiary of the American aerospace and defense group RTX (formerly Raytheon).

Cyberattacks and tech outages have disrupted operations at airports around the world in recent years, from Japan to Germany, as air travel increasingly relies on online, interconnected systems.

The aviation sector saw a 600 percent increase in cyberattacks from 2024 to 2025, according to a June report by French aerospace company Thales.

"From airlines and airports to navigation systems and suppliers, every link in the chain is vulnerable to attack," the report warned, pointing out that the strategically and economically important sector had become a "prime target" for cyberattacks.

Last July, Australian airline Qantas was targeted by hackers, who broke into a system containing sensitive data on six million of its customers. In December 2024, Japan Airlines was also targeted.

A massive global IT crash in July 2024, which was not the result of a cyber attack, wreaked havoc across airports, some of which halted all air flights, while others resorted to manual check-ins resulting in swelling queues and frustrated travellers.

'Queues not moving' 

"They didn't tell us anything. It's always crowded here, but today is like extra," said a 41-year-old architect, who gave her first name as Rowan.

"If the system is down they should delay the flight. That's what I'm hoping," she added, waiting in the packed check-in area at Heathrow's Terminal 4 for a Saudia Airlines flight to Jeddah.

Another woman waiting for an Air Algerie flight to Algeria said she had waited for over an hour to check in.

"They said they're doing everything manually. That's all they've told us," said the 30-year-old, asking not to give her name.

Freelance journalist Tereza Pultarova was booked on a flight to Amsterdam with a connection onto a KLM flight to Cape Town. 

"They were checking in people at the rate of, like, one person per 10 minutes," she said, adding it looked like she would miss a once-in-a-lifetime work trip to the Karoo desert which would probably head off without her.

"It was just insane, the queue wasn't moving."