Cyber Attack Cripples Major European Airports, Grounding Flights and Triggering Widespread Delays in London, Brussels, and Berlin

Airports across Europe, including London’s Heathrow, Brussels, and Berlin, are grappling with widespread disruption after a cyber attack crippled airline check-in and boarding systems, forcing a return to manual operations.

Brussels Airport confirmed the breach on Friday, reporting at least ten flight cancellations and seventeen delays of more than an hour. Error messages on check-in desks read temporarily unavailable in red, while staff resorted to handwriting baggage tags.

Heathrow also warned passengers of delays, initially citing a technical issue before later identifying Collins Aerospace, a major global aviation systems provider, as the source of the problem. The company’s MUSE software, used to handle check-in and baggage processes worldwide, suffered what RTX, its parent firm, described as a cyber-related disruption.

Airports advised passengers to check flight status before traveling, with Heathrow recommending arrivals no earlier than three hours before long-haul flights and two hours for domestic departures. Additional staff were deployed to ease congestion.

Travelers described chaotic scenes. Maria Casey, due to fly to Thailand, reported queuing for three hours at Heathrow with little communication from staff, only later realizing the disruption stemmed from a cyber attack.

In Brussels, spokesperson Ariane Goossens confirmed the outage was linked to a compromised external service provider. She explained that manual check-in and boarding was slowing operations, leading to delays and cancellations. Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport also cut connections after its passenger handling systems provider was targeted Friday evening.

As of Saturday morning, Brussels, Berlin, and London remained heavily affected, with fears of knock-on effects across Europe’s busy air travel network. Authorities have not provided a clear timeline for full restoration.