PPassengers who cannot check in and cannot board the plane – a major IT failure largely paralyzed operations at Europe’s largest airline, Deutsche Lufthansa, on Wednesday morning.
The failure goes back to work on the expansion of the Frankfurt S-Bahn. According to Deutsche Bahn, “a cable in a cable bundle belonging to Telekom AG was severed by a contracted construction company around 7 p.m. at the construction site for line S6”. The railway immediately informed Telekom about the damage. This resulted in disruptions to telecom services, mainly in the north of the city, but also elsewhere. The airport is in the west of Frankfurt.
“We advise against traveling to the airport”
The IT failure at Lufthansa meant that airports no longer had the necessary data to check in passengers or board the plane. The group confirmed the disturbances. “For this reason, delays in handling and also influences on flight operations must be expected,” said Lufthansa.
In order to limit the consequences for passengers, a crisis team met at Lufthansa Group headquarters on Wednesday. The group explained that they are working intensively on a solution. Affected passengers should inform themselves online in advance about their flight. “If your flight is affected, we advise against traveling to the airport,” said Lufthansa.
Passengers on domestic routes were advised to switch to the train, those affected reported on social networks such as Twitter. There they would come in addition to the existing passengers. Deutsche Bahn stated that it “generally had sufficient capacity to be able to transport the passengers concerned.” Nevertheless, the company recommended reserving a seat at short notice and looking for fewer booked trains in the online occupancy display.
For passengers, the IT failure at Lufthansa means that they will not receive a boarding pass and will not be able to board the plane. The necessary passenger lists cannot be created. Affected travelers shared pictures of passengers waiting in the crowded terminals in online networks.
At airports like Frankfurt, the aprons became more crowded because aircraft did not take off and therefore could not make room for incoming flights. As a precaution, German air traffic control initially closed Frankfurt Airport for landings. This should prevent the turnstile from filling up, as a spokesman for air traffic control said. After several hours of closure, landings are now allowed again at Frankfurt Airport. Since 1:20 p.m., 40 approaches per hour have been possible again, which is close to the current normal operation, said a spokeswoman for German air traffic control. According to Fraport, there were more than 200 flight cancellations by noon. More than half of these were arrivals.
The machines were diverted to other airports such as Nuremberg, Cologne or Düsseldorf. For the second Lufthansa hub in Munich, there was initially no blocking of air traffic control.
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