A Number of Cancellations Expected Today as Dublin Airport Continues to Recover from Weekend Chaos
Dublin Airport is still reeling from the cyber attack and bomb scare that occurred on Saturday, with passengers in Terminal 2 experiencing delays at check-in this morning.
According to the Dublin Airport operator DAA, some airlines in Terminal 2 are having to resort to "manual workarounds" in issuing bag tags and boarding passes. This has resulted in a delay for passengers who have checked in online or have bags to check.
A Delays Caused by Cyber Attack
The cyber attack on Collins Aerospace, which provides the check-in and boarding software used by airports in London, Brussels, and Berlin, caused severe issues over the weekend. At least 13 flights in or out of Dublin that used Terminal 2 were cancelled yesterday.
Passengers in Dublin Airport’s Terminal 2 are experiencing delays at check-in this morning following Saturday's cyber attack on European airports, though no flight cancellations are reported. The online hack, combined with Saturday's bomb scare that prompted an evacuation of Terminal 2, caused severe issues over the weekend.
A Bomb Scare Leads to Evacuation
In an unrelated incident, an estimated 12,000 people were evacuated from Dublin Airport’s Terminal 2 for about 90 minutes on Saturday afternoon after a suspicious device was found in the luggage of a passenger in Terminal 2, triggering the highest level of security response.
The evacuation began at 11.40am with thousands of people being shepherded to set-down areas outside the terminal buildings while gardaí and the Defence Forces’ Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team examined a piece of luggage. The luggage was deemed safe to be removed from the terminal building to a location where it would not impact on airport operations.
Airlines Respond
Brussels Airport said 50 of yesterday’s 257 scheduled departures had been cancelled to avoid long queues and last-minute cancellations. A day earlier, 25 of the planned 234 outgoing flights were cancelled, the airport operator said.
Berlin Brandenburg Airport also reported some problems, but a manual workaround was in place. Heathrow said early yesterday that work was continuing to recover from the check-in system outage and that "the vast majority of flights have continued to operate".
A Resolution in Sight
According to Graeme McQueen, DAA head of communications, “It's not ideal, obviously, but it is having a very minimal impact.” The operator also advises passengers to arrive at the airport in normal time today – two hours before a short-haul flight and three hours before a long-haul flight.
However, if checking in a bag in Terminal 2, Mr McQueen advised passengers to allow for even more time. “There are experts being flown into Dublin Airport and the other impacted airports in the last 24 hours to help fix this,” he said. "It involves the rebuilding of servers and things like that, so it is going to take time.”