Update 11:45 BST (with cause of breakdown):
A group-wide IT system failure at Lufthansa is massively disrupting the airline group’s flight operations at its Frankfurt hub. Systems for check-in and boarding are affected, said a Lufthansa spokesman. There will be massive delays and flight cancellations. The cause, he said, was civil engineering work by Deutsche Bahn during the night in Frankfurt, during which several Deutsche Telekom fiber optic cables were cut.
Engineering work by Deutsche Bahn caused breakdown
Telekom said in an information to customers that voice and Internet services were affected. “We expect the complete fault clearance to continue until the afternoon,” the notice said Lufthansa and Eurowings flights in Germany were affected.
According to Lufthansa, however, not the Group’s other airlines – Austrian Airlines of Austria, Brussels Airlines of Belgium and Swiss. On the website Allestörungen.de, reports of problems at Lufthansa began to accumulate at around eight o’clock.
According to the Frankfurt Airport website, a good 30 outgoing flights of the airline were canceled in the morning. For arrivals, there were more than 90 connections. Munich Airport initially reported about seven cancellations each for departures and arrivals. In Hamburg, there was only one Lufthansa connection in the morning.
A Lufthansa spokesman did not confirm a report by the Bloomberg news agency that all Lufthansa Group departures had been canceled. No comment could initially be obtained from Deutsche Telekom and Deutsche Flugsicherung.
Lufthansa Confirms IT Outage Leading to Delays and Disruptions
Multiple German airports are affected by widespread Lufthansa IT outage, resulting in significant disruptions and delays for passengers. An as-yet-unknown number of flights have been delayed or canceled. Affected are the systems for check-in as well as for boarding. Aircraft and passengers were jammed at Frankfurt and Munich Airport. Passengers were also not allowed into the waiting planes by tally sheet because, according to staff, important information about the departure was missing. All domestic German flights were initially canceled and passengers were asked to change to trains. Chaos in departure halls was documented by passengers who shared photos and videos online.
Lufthansa builds Crisis Management Team
According to reports by the German news outlet BILD, a crisis management team was convened to assess the impact of the IT outage on Lufthansa’s operations.
A Lufthansa spokeswoman in Frankfurt said that a solution was being worked on intensively. It is still unclear how the system failure occurred.
The airline’s share price immediately came under pressure.