Some of Europe’s busiest airports — including London’s Heathrow, Berlin Brandenburg, and Brussels Airport — are still grappling with flight delays and cancellations after hackers targeted check-in and boarding software provider Collins Aerospace, owned by RTX.
The attack, which began on Friday, disabled Collins’ MUSE software, forcing airports to fall back on manual check-in operations. While Heathrow and Berlin reported easing disruption by Sunday, Brussels Airport said delays and cancellations would continue into Monday.
Brussels Airport asked airlines to cancel half of Monday’s flights to avoid severe queues and last-minute disruptions. On Sunday, 50 of 257 scheduled departures were canceled, following 25 cancellations the previous day.
Collins said it was in the “final stages” of restoring systems with a secure updated version of its software. However, Brussels Airport noted it had not yet received this update.
Passengers without online check-in or carry-on-only travel faced the worst queues. One traveler in Brussels described the experience:
“For me, it was business as usual. For those poor souls who didn’t do online check-in or have bags to check, they may be waiting a bit.”
Cirium data showed disruption levels varied: Heathrow had “low” delays, Berlin “moderate,” and Brussels “significant.”
The cyberattack is part of a wider wave of hacks disrupting European industries. Recent incidents included Jaguar Land Rover’s halted production and Marks & Spencer’s financial losses running into hundreds of millions of pounds. Regulators have launched investigations into the source of the latest breach.