Dublin Airport passengers have been warned to arrive early to check in baggage as the fallout from a weekend cyberattack continues on Monday.
DAA, which manages the airport, said it was continuing to support airlines “as they manage ongoing disruption from a technical issue that is affecting check-in and boarding systems at several airports in Europe”.
It said while airlines in Terminal 1 were operating as normal, some were continuing to use manual workarounds to issue bag tags and boarding passes in Terminal 2.
“As a result, check-in and bag drop may take longer than usual,” it said on Monday. “Passengers should plan to arrive at the airport as normal today - two hours before a short-haul flight and three hours before a long-haul flight. However, if you need to check in or drop bags in Terminal 2, please allow extra time.”
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A cyberattack on a provider of check-in and boarding systems had disrupted operations at several major European airports on Sunday including Dublin.
Aer Lingus said had its operations were being “significantly impacted” and it was leading “to flight delays and some cancellations” from Dublin on Sunday.
“Customers will be communicated with directly if they are impacted by any flight cancellations,” the airline said in a statement. “We will continue to update our information to passengers and are advising customers to check their SMS and our website for the latest update. We appreciate the patience and cooperation of our customers as we continue to manage this unfortunate disruption.”
Around a dozen flights, both inbound and outbound, had been impacted as of Sunday lunchtime.
The cyberattck is the latest in a string targeting governments and companies, hitting sectors from healthcare and defence to retail and autos. The issues, which began on Saturday, were centred on MUSE software made by Collins Aerospace, which provides systems for several airlines at airports globally, airports said.
RTX, Collins Aerospace’s parent company, said it was aware of a “cyber-related disruption” to the software at selected airports, without naming them.
“The impact is limited to electronic customer check-in and baggage drop and can be mitigated with manual check-in operations,” RTX said in an emailed statement, adding that it was working to fix the issue as quickly as possible.
It did not give any information on who might be behind the attack.
London’s Heathrow Airport said it was among those affected. Brussels Airport and Berlin Airport were also affected, they said separately.
Officials in Brussels said there had been some flight diversions, as well as “delays on most of the departing flights.”
Brussels Airport said it had asked airlines to cancel half of their scheduled departing flights on Sunday to avoid long queues and late cancellations, signalling that the disruption would continue through the weekend.
A European Commission spokesperson said there were currently no indications of a “widespread or severe attack” and that the origin of the incident was still under investigation.
These kinds of sweeping outages are typically the result either of ransomware attacks, where online extortionists paralyse corporate networks in the hope of payment, or deliberate digital sabotage.
Rafe Pilling, director of threat intelligence at cybersecurity company Sophos, said the impact of the incident highlighted “the fragile and interdependent nature of the digital ecosystem underpinning air travel”.
Berlin Airport said on its website there were longer waiting times at check-in and it was working on a quick solution.
British and German cyber defence authorities said they were in touch with their respective airports over the matter. - Agencies
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