Heathrow Airport latest: Passengers issued update as disruption continues into Sunday after suspected cyber attack
Passengers at Heathrow Airport are still facing disruption this morning after a suspected cyber attack caused major issued with check-in systems at airports across Europe.
Issues with the system, supplied by Collins Aerospace, were first reported late on Friday evening (September 19) and had a huge impact on flights departing major European airports such as Heathrow, Brussels, and Berlin throughout Saturday (September 20). The issue stemmed from an alleged cyber attack on the third-party company and caused delays as airport staff reverted to manual check-in systems.
The disruption wss still felt on Sunday, September 21 while staff and passengers continue to feel the effect of the suspected cyber attack on check-in and baggage systems.
In an update to passengers issued on Sunday morning (September 21), Heathrow Airport has said: “Work continues to resolve and recover from Friday's outage of a Collins Aerospace airline system that impacted check-in. We apologise to those who have faced delays, but by working together with airlines, the vast majority of flights have continued to operate.
“We encourage passengers to check the status of their flight before travelling to Heathrow and to arrive no earlier than three hours for long-haul flights and two hours for short-haul.”
According to FlightRadar24, 187 flights at Heathrow Airport have already been delayed today (September 21) and seven flights have been cancelled at the time of writing. However, it has not been confirmed whether these delays and cancellations are related to the suspected cyber attack.
British Airways in Terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport has said that there is no impact on its services.
Brussels Airport said on Sunday: “As a result of a cyberattack on the external service provider of the check-in and boarding systems, check-in operations at several European airports, including Brussels Airport, are heavily disrupted.
“The service provider is actively working on the issue and trying to resolve the problem as quickly as possible. This has a large impact on the flight schedule and will, unfortunately, cause delays and cancellations of flights.”
Collins Aerosphere said in a statement issued on Saturday: “We have become aware of a cyber-related disruption to our Muse (multi-user system environment) software in select airports.
“We are actively working to resolve the issue and restore full functionality to our customers as quickly as possible. The impact is limited to electronic customer check-in and baggage drop and can be mitigated with manual check-in operations.”