Lufthansa IT outage causes delays for thousands of passengers

15 Feb 2023

Image: © travelview/Stock.adobe.com

The German airline said the outage was caused by construction work in Frankfurt, which impacted a telecommunications line.

Lufthansa has suffered a disruption to its systems, causing thousands of passengers to be stranded worldwide.

The German airline said it has suffered an IT outage as a result of construction work in the Frankfurt region.

Lufthansa said the construction work caused a telecommunications line failure, which has had a “major impact” on its IT systems.

As a result, the airline said all departures and landings in Frankfurt have been suspended “for the time being”, with some of its operations in Munich also being affected.

A report by Reuters claims more than 200 flights have been cancelled in Frankfurt so far, while videos and photos have been shared online of passengers waiting to be checked in at German airports.

The disruption appears to have impacted flights in other airports, as one video claimed staff in London are manually checking in passengers as a result of the outage.

“Due to the system failure, rebooking on other flights is currently limited,” Lufthansa said in a statement. “Please try to inform yourself in the self service facilities and rebook. However, there may also be delays here.”

The airline told Reuters that it expects flight operations to restabilize by the early evening. The company also said that it still has flights in the air that “will not be brought to ground”.

A spokesperson had previously told Bloomberg that some of its flight operations had resumed but that all flights to Frankfurt were grounded.

The disruption comes two days before protests are scheduled to take place at various airports in Germany. Lufthansa has warned that these protests on 17 February are expected to impact a large number of their flights.

Last month, Lufthansa Technik Turbine Shannon – a subsidiary of Lufthansa – shared plans to expand its Irish operations with the opening of a new facility in Clare. The subsidiary said it was urgently recruiting for 25 aircraft mechanics, along with plans to launch another recruitment drive by the end of the year.

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Leigh Mc Gowran is a journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com