European airports were starting to recover on Sunday from a cyberattack affecting their check-in systems that has caused flight cancellations and huge delays for thousands of passengers over the past two days.
While Brussels airport said almost one-fifth of Sunday’s scheduled departures had been cancelled, other affected hubs said their schedules were getting back to normal.
London Heathrow and Dublin airports said they were managing passenger flows while they tried to fix the problem with the software.
Dublin airport said it expected to function normally throughout Sunday.
Its “team is continuing to support airlines today as they deal with the ongoing disruption caused by a Europe-wide technical issue that is impacting on their check-in and boarding systems,” it said in a post on X.
Heathrow Airport said in a statement the “vast majority of flights” continued to be operated thanks to collaboration with the airlines.
READ ALSO: Flights disrupted across Europe after ‘cyber-related disruption’
A Brussels airport spokeswoman said 45 of 257 departing flights had been cancelled and passengers could expect delays of “between 30 and 90 minutes”.
In Berlin, more than 70 flights had been delayed by midday, although some flights had left on time, The Guardian reported.
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The airport had a note on its website saying that “due to a systems outage at a service provider, there are longer waiting times. Please use online check-in, self-service check-in and the fast bag drop service”.
Münster/Osnabrück Airport was also “indirectly affected”, reports from Sky News suggested.
In a statement on Saturday, the northwestern airport said: “Munster/Osnabruck Airport was only indirectly affected by the technical malfunction of the external system provider. As a preventive measure, we have redirected our handling systems to our internal IT infrastructure, ensuring a smooth operational process for arrivals and departures.
It said on Saturday that operations were running “without restrictions” with all flights able to depart “on schedule” last night.
Airports began reporting problems with passenger check-in software supplied by Collins Aerospace on Friday.
The company said on Saturday 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 defence group RTX, formerly known as Raytheon.
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Cyberattacks and tech outages have disrupted airports around the world in recent years, from Japan to Germany, as air travel increasingly relies on online, interconnected systems.
Aviation expert Anita Mendiratta, who is also a special adviser to the secretary general of UN tourism, told AFP on Saturday it was difficult to know who was behind the attack.
The aviation sector saw a 600-percent increase in cyberattacks from 2024 to 2025, according to a report by French aerospace company Thales released in June.
“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.
