London Heathrow Grapples with Second Consecutive Day of Disruption Due to Cyber Attack

Strategic Insights -

London Heathrow airport, the UK's busiest, faced a second day of disruption on Saturday after a cyber attack on a critical airline IT system, Collins Aerospace's Muse system, forced carriers to manually check in passengers and cancel flights. The outage began on Friday and affected Heathrow's terminals, causing long queues, flight delays, and missed connections. Travellers reported waiting for hours as staff manually checked passengers in over the phone. According to FlightAware, 47% of Heathrow's departing flights were delayed on Saturday, with over a dozen cancellations logged by Sunday morning.

Key Takeaways:

  • The cyber attack on Collins Aerospace's Muse system, which allows multiple airlines to share check-in desks and boarding gates, caused significant disruption at Heathrow airport on Saturday, with 47% of departing flights delayed and over a dozen cancellations.
  • The outage, which affected Heathrow's terminals, caused long queues and flight delays, with travellers waiting for hours as staff manually checked passengers in over the phone.
  • The incident highlights the vulnerabilities of aviation IT systems, with cybersecurity experts warning of the risks of interconnected systems for efficiency and the importance of resilience in the face of cyber attacks.
  • Collins Aerospace, owned by defence giant RTX, has not disclosed the source of the attack or when systems will be fully restored, with the company stressing that the disruption was limited to electronic customer check-in and baggage drop.
  • The episode follows a string of recent IT crises in UK aviation, including a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike that grounded flights across the US and spilled into European hubs, and an outage at air traffic control provider NATS that caused the cancellation of over 150 flights.
  • Aviation analysts warn that while airlines can fall back on manual systems, the disruption underscores how dependent the sector has become on shared technology, and that prolonged outages may not be enough to keep Europe's skies running smoothly.

Statistics:

  • 47% of Heathrow's departing flights were delayed on Saturday (FlightAware).
  • Over a dozen flights were cancelled at Heathrow on Sunday morning (Brussels Airport).
  • 44 flights were scrapped on Sunday morning at Brussels Airport due to "heavily disrupted" check-in operations.
  • 8 flights were cancelled at Berlin Brandenburg airport due to long queues and disruptions (Berlin Brandenburg Airport).
  • The cyber attack did not affect aviation safety and air traffic control systems (European Commission).
  • The incident highlights the increasing risks within aviation as airports and airlines rely on interconnected systems for efficiency (Vykintas Maknickas, NordVPN's travel eSIM app Saily).

Sources:

  • "Breaking: Cyber attack hits Heathrow and European airports" (City AM).
  • "Collins Aerospace Confirms Cyber-Related Disruption" (City AM).
  • "Heathrow airport hit by cyber attack, with passengers waiting in long queues" (The Guardian).
  • "FlightAware" (FlightAware website).
  • "British Airways' Terminal 5 remains unaffected by Heathrow's cyber attack" (The Independent).
  • "Brussels Airport cancels half of its flights due to 'heavily disrupted' check-in operations" (Brussels Airport).
  • "Berlin Brandenburg airport reports long queues and flight cancellations due to cyber attack" (Berlin Brandenburg Airport).
  • "European Commission: No sign of widespread or severe attack" (European Commission).
  • "National Cyber Security Centre: Assessing the impact of the cyber attack" (NCSC website).
  • "Liberal Democrats call for ministers to confirm whether Russia was involved in the cyber attack" (The Independent).
  • "Fragile aviation IT systems under scrutiny: Experts warn of increasing risks within aviation" (NordVPN's travel eSIM app Saily).