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Air passengers across Europe were left stranded at the airport as an IT error at German airline Lufthansa caused flight delays in all airlines the group owns.
According to a spokesperson for Lufthansa, this was a group-wide IT system failure that has affected all airlines, and operations aren’t expected to return to normality until this evening, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
As footage of the situation shared by passengers on social media shows, the company had to organise flights and other procedures usually done electronically, by pen and paper as the system couldn’t process luggage digitally. All flights within the country have been cancelled, in addition to international flights that have been impacted by the disruption. The company said it is working to find a solution as soon as possible.
“Lufthansa asks affected passengers to check the status of their flight on the company’s app or website before arriving at the airport. Passengers with domestic flights can switch to Deutsche Bahn until Sunday,” the airline explains in a press release.
Lufthansa Group, which is also the German flag carrier, owns six other airlines, including Swiss, Edelweiss Air, Brussels Airlines, and Eurowings.
Luckily, passengers that were supposed to travel within Germany and were affected by the situation, are advised to book a train ticket and apply for a refund on Lufthansa’s website, which will be reimbursed in the upcoming months.
The IT failure, according to Lufthansa, has occurred due to construction work in Frankfurt which has caused damage to several of Deutsche Telekom’s fibre optic cables. This issue has occurred two days ahead of strikes announced at seven German airports, which can cause an even more profound crisis in the air travelling this month.
Similarly, SAS, the Scandinavian airline reported it experienced a cyber attack and urged customers to avoid using its app. It later informed customers that the problem was fixed.
“We aren’t able to say a lot more right now as we are right in the attack right now,” Karin Nyman, head of press at SAS, told Reuters.
The transport sector has been affected quite a lot in Germany in recent months as unknown people cut cables off a public railway in December, which is considered the second action against the country’s Bahn.
Airlines have annulled more than 1,300 flights and over 10,000 weren’t operated in the United States last month after a key government computer system was taken down.
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