British holidaymakers are facing travel chaos at Heathrow after a cyber attack disrupted check-in and boarding systems for several major European airports.
Passengers at the UK's largest airport are experiencing three hour long queues this morning after hackers targeted Collins Aerospace, which provides services for multiple airlines globally, on Friday night, according to the Daily Mail.
The company is 'experiencing a technical issue which may cause delays for departing passengers'. Although the attack 'is limited to electronic customer check-in and baggage drop and can be mitigated with manual check-in operations', it added.
The timing of the attack coincides with recent Russian incursions into NATO territories, the latest taking place just hours ago when three fighter jets entered neighbouring Estonia in a 'reckless' and 'brazen' attempt to intimidate the Baltic state.
Heathrow has warned of delays and advised customers to check their flight status with their airline before travelling, while a number of departures were also cancelled.
Brussels and Berlin have also been affected by the cyber attack, with the former confirming that 10 flights had been cancelled and 17 flights were experiencing delays of more than one hour.
It is currently unclear who is behind the incident, although Russian hackers have launched a number of devastating attacks against organisations both in the UK and the US in recent months.
Marks & Spencer, Harrods and the Co-op were all targeted by the Russia-linked group cybercrime group DragonForce earlier this year, while Moscow is also believed to be behind an 'unprecedented' hack on the US Department of Justice.
Collins Aerospace itself has also previously been the target of suspected Russian hackers after ransomware group BianLian caused a huge data breach in 2023.
Heathrow has warned of delays for passengers after cyber hackers targeted a service provider for several major European airports. PIctured: Passengers queue at Heathrow on Saturday after a cyber attack on an airline service provider
Heathrow has warned of delays for passengers after cyber hackers targeted a service provider for several major European airports. PIctured: Passengers queue at Heathrow on Saturday after a cyber attack on an airline service provider
Aviation and travel expert Paul Charles said the attack was 'very clever' as it has 'affected a number of airlines and airports at the same time'.
'I am really surprised and shocked by this. Collins is owned by RTX, which is the world's biggest defence and aviation company. Collins supplies the UK government, it supplies other government's around the world,' he told Sky News.
'There will be deep concerns that their systems have been tampered with in such a way. We don't know the exact cause of the cyber attack but it's deeply worrying.'
Disgruntled passengers have vented their frustration over the issue, with one person writing on X: 'Delays at LHR T4, so annoying. Charging £6 drop off, maybe they should improve their services. You just can't travel smoothly in the UK.'
Another woman who arrived at Heathrow Airport this morning for a flight to Thailand was forced to wait three hours to drop her luggage off.
'The queues are terrible. It was an absolute skeleton staff. Out of six of the desks there were probably two people,' she told Sky News.
'We were queuing for three hours and literally snaking and shuffling with this skeleton staff on the desk, and nobody was telling us then (what was happening).'
A third person told the Daily Mail they had been stuck in Brussels 'for hours' after leaving Africa at 4pm on Friday. 'We are on our 7th gate change, no announcements, no drinks offered. Terrible,' they added.
Tereza Pultarova, a freelance journalist from London, arrived at Heathrow Airport in the early hours of the morning to catch a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight to Amsterdam, where she was to hop on a connection flight to Cape Town in South Africa.
'We've been here since 4.30am we were supposed to be on a 6.30am flight to Amsterdam,' Ms Pultarova said. 'Most people on this flight have connecting flights to catch in Amsterdam from all over the world.
'We were kind of stranded here because the weird thing is, KLM wasn't able to issue us boarding passes digitally, and requested us to collect them at the check-in desk.
'And then they told us that there is some sort of global issue with the system they're using for check-in and boarding, and they have to do everything manually.
"So then they were checking in people at the rate of, like, one person per 10 minutes. I'm not exaggerating. It was just insane, the queue wasn't moving.
'So they checked-in like 20 people, maybe like the business class, and then told the people from the 6.30 flight to just go away, that they need to start checking in for the 8.40 flight.'
Ms Pultarova was to visit the Square Kilometre Array telescopes in the Karoo Desert for work, and added she had been looking forward to this trip for months.
She said: 'I need to be there at 7am tomorrow, otherwise the party will leave for the Karoo Desert where the telescopes are. So yeah, you know, I need to have information, but nobody's giving me any information, so I don't know what to do.'