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  • Cyberattack disrupts check-in systems at major European airports

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    BRUSSELS — A cyberattack targeting check-in and boarding systems has disrupted air traffic and caused delays at several of Europe’s major airports, officials said Saturday.

    Brussels airport reported that the attack means that only manual check-in and boarding was possible there, and the incident was having a “large impact” on flight schedules.

    “There was a cyberattack on Friday night 19 September against the service provider for the check-in and boarding systems affecting several European airports including Brussels Airport,” it said in a statement.

    Authorities at Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport said a service provider for passenger handling systems was attacked on Friday evening, prompting airport operators to cut off connections to the systems.

    London Heathrow Airport, Europe’s busiest, said “a technical issue” affected a service provider for check-in and boarding systems.

    “Collins Aerospace, which provides check-in and boarding systems for several airlines across multiple airports globally, is experiencing a technical issue that may cause delays for departing passengers,” Heathrow said in a statement.

    The airports advised travelers to check their flight status and apologized for any inconvenience.

    Formed in 2018, Collins is a U.S. aviation and defense technology company and a subsidiary of RTX Corp., which was formerly Raytheon Technologies.

    Collins provides the technology that allows passengers to check themselves in, print boarding passes and bag tags, and dispatch their own luggage, all from a kiosk.

    Collins said it was “aware of a cyber-related disruption” to its MUSE (Multi-User System Environment) software at “select airports” but that manual check-in operations could still be used.

    “We are actively working to resolve the issue and restore full functionality to our customers as quickly as possible,” it said in a statement. “The impact is limited to electronic customer check-in and baggage drop and can be mitigated with manual check-in operations.”

    The impact was felt only at some airports: the Roissy, Orly and Le Bourget airports in the Paris area reported no disruptions.

    Copyright © 2025 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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  • Airplane bounces along Heathrow runway during Storm Gerrit | CNN

    Airplane bounces along Heathrow runway during Storm Gerrit | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    It’s been a stormy tail end to Christmas for the UK and Ireland, as the countries were hit by Storm Gerrit coming in from the Atlantic on Wednesday, bringing gale force winds and flooding in its wake.

    It caused havoc for aviation, with flights being canceled across the countries. Air traffic restrictions saw major delays at Heathrow, with flight cancellations across the UK, including Manchester and Glasgow. The UK’s flag carrier British Airways canceled 13 flights because of the weather. In Ireland, Dublin Airport remained unscathed, though Cork saw four diversions, to Dublin and Shannon.

    Planes that managed to take off faced an equally difficult fate: trying to land in the storm.

    One American Airlines flight was caught on camera during a particularly bumpy landing at Heathrow on December 27.

    The Boeing 777, coming in from Los Angeles, was seen wobbling from side to side as it came down, toppling briefly towards the left, before appearing to bounce or “bunny hop” on the runway before sticking to terra firma and slowing down.

    The “insane” landing was filmed by Big Jet TV owner Jerry Dyer, who regularly sets up livestreams at airports around the world to watch flights coming in, and has a particular soft spot for stormy weather.

    Dyer told CNN in 2022 that he’s drawn to the “battle” between man and nature during a storm at an airport.

    “Whenever there’s windy conditions, stormy conditions, I’m always up at Heathrow,” he said at the time.

    “It’s a lot more exciting to watch than aircraft just landing down and touching down and all that kind of stuff. It’s the battle, isn’t it? It’s the forces of nature against an alloy tub with wings on it that we built and we have to control it down onto the ground in Mother Nature’s winds.

    “It’s a fantastic thing to watch.”

    His livestream of Storm Eunice in 2022, in which planes battled to land at Heathrow despite 122 mile-per-hour winds battering the UK, captivated the entire country.

    There were more than 200 severe wind gust reports across Britain and Ireland on Wednesday, with a possible tornado sighting in Stalybridge, Greater Manchester. A level 2 of 3 threat for a severe storm remained for far southeastern Ireland and west-central UK until early Thursday morning, according to the European Storm Forecast Experiment (ESTOFEX).

    Streaming the AA flight, Dyer’s famously enthusiastic commentary noted the air “vortex” around the wings as it came in, before lamenting “oh stop it, stop that” as the plane bounced down the runway.

    “How he did not go around I just have no idea,” he commented.

    Despite the conditions, flight AA134, which had departed LA on December 26, touched down just one minute late – at 11.41 a.m. on December 27, according to flight tracker FlightRadar.

    It then took off again around two hours later, making its way to Dallas, where it landed early. Luckily with a different crew.

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  • The rich should pay higher fares to clean up aviation, says Heathrow boss | CNN Business

    The rich should pay higher fares to clean up aviation, says Heathrow boss | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Rich travelers will have to pay more to fly if the aviation industry is to transition to greener fuels, the boss of one of the world’s biggest airports said Tuesday.

    Speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos hosted by CNN’s Richard Quest, Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said that wealthy individuals and companies should pay extra to fly with sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in order to bring the costs down for everyone else, particularly people in developing countries.

    He said that financiers and energy suppliers should invest in SAF production, including in emerging markets.

    “But as individuals and companies we need to be paying the premium for sustainable aviation fuels so that we can get the cost of it down so that the mass market and developing countries don’t have to pay for the energy transition. The wealthy people in this room and wealthy nations should be funding the energy transition in aviation to help support developing countries,” he added.

    Holland-Kaye said the solution to sustainable aviation was not to fly less, which was not necessarily an option outside Northern Europe, but to use cleaner sources of energy to travel.

    SAF is viewed as critical to reducing aviation’s carbon emissions but its green credentials come at a hefty price. Some airlines allow passengers to offset their CO2 emissions by paying more for their tickets to cover the extra cost of using SAF, but very few travelers currently make use of this option.

    Holland-Kaye said that companies can play a major role accelerating the adoption of SAF because business travel accounts for about 30% of fuel used in aviation. He cited the example of Microsoft

    (MSFT)    , which has an internal carbon tax for travel that requires each business unit to pay a fee based on its carbon emissions.

    Produced mainly from recycled food and agricultural waste, such as used cooking oil, SAF is a type of biofuel that cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 80% compared to conventional jet fuel.

    It also costs between two and eight times more than its fossil-fuel based alternative, which is why in 2019 it accounted for just 0.1% of jet fuel used in commercial aviation, according to a report by the World Economic Forum and McKinsey.

    In 2021, the industry pledged to replaced 10% of global jet fuel supply with SAF by 2030. This year, Virgin Atlantic plans to fly a Boeing 787 from London to New York powered solely by SAF in what has been billed as the world’s first net-zero transatlantic flight.

    Clean energy investments need a major boost if the world is to meet its climate goals, according to Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted a surge in investment in renewables as countries race to secure alternative energy supplies, but much more needs to be done, he said.

    Speaking on another Davos panel hosted by CNN’s Julia Chatterley earlier on Tuesday, Birol said that for every dollar invested in fossil fuels, the world is now investing $1.50 in clean energy. That needs to increase to $9 to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, he added.

    — Anna Cooban contributed reporting.

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