When the Screens Went Dark: A Morning of Manual Checks and Tangled Itineraries at Europe’s Busiest Hubs
The day began like any other at Heathrow: the hum of trolley wheels, the chorus of departure boards, the scent of coffee and last-minute croissants mixing with the perfume of nervous travellers. By midmorning, however, a different kind of electricity was in the air—the jittery, anxious kind that comes when invisible systems we all trust suddenly fail.
At Terminal 4, rows of passengers wound past metal stanchions, clutching passports and printouts as if they were talismans. Staff held clipboards and forms; luggage piled at counters where, moments before, sleek touchscreen kiosks had told people where to go. Across Europe, in Brussels, Berlin and later Dublin and Cork, the same scene was playing out: a polite reversion to pen, paper and human intervention after a cyber-related disruption knocked out electronic check-in and baggage-drop services tied to MUSE software from Collins Aerospace—a system used by many airlines and airports worldwide.
Numbers that Tell a Tangled Story
It was not a cataclysmic fall from the sky—at least not yet. Aviation data provider Cirium recorded 29 departures and arrivals cancelled at Heathrow, Berlin and Brussels by lunchtime. Those airports alone had hundreds of departures scheduled for the day: 651 at Heathrow, 228 at Brussels and 226 at Berlin. Brussels authorities warned that delays and diversions had been significant enough that they had requested airlines cancel roughly half of their departing flights for the following day, a stark sign that the ripple effects would not be confined to a few delayed itineraries.
“It feels like someone pulled the plug on an entire backstage,” said Martina López, a mother of two trying to check in for a flight to Barcelona at Brussels Airport. “Nobody was angry—just exhausted. We kept being told to ‘wait’ and ‘we’ll do it manually.’ Manual takes time when hundreds of people need the same thing.”
The Vulnerability Beneath Convenience
The incident sits squarely in a worrying pattern. Over the past several years, sectors from healthcare to automotive manufacturing and retail have been hit by cyber intrusions that temporarily—but painfully—bring services to a standstill. Luxury automaker Jaguar Land Rover, for example, halted production after a breach earlier this year. Supply-chain attacks and ransomware strains have become a favored weapon of choice for groups seeking payoff or disruption.
Cybersecurity experts warn that the modern airport is a network of interdependent technologies. “Air travel is an orchestra of systems—some are the loud instruments you see, others are the quiet ones backstage,” said Daniel Meyer, a London-based cybersecurity analyst who tracks critical-infrastructure incidents. “When a supplier like Collins Aerospace provides software that sits at the heart of check-in operations, it becomes a single point of failure. That’s not hypothetical—it’s what we saw today.”
Industry estimates underscore the stakes. Forecasts from cybersecurity researchers suggest global damages from cybercrime could reach into the trillions in the coming years, with ransomware among the most costly threats. Each outage that forces airports to swap digital processes for paper forms does more than delay flights—it reveals how thin the margins are between normalcy and chaos.
What Happened, and Who’s Looking Into It?
RTX, the parent company of Collins Aerospace, acknowledged a “cyber-related disruption” affecting selected airports and said it was working to restore services. The company did not immediately name the affected locations. European Commission officials said there were no indications the attack was a widescale, coordinated assault across the continent, but investigations were ongoing.
Brussels authorities reported multiple diversions and significant delays, while Dublin and Cork airports later confirmed minor impacts. Frankfurt, Germany’s largest airport, said it was unaffected. For passengers, the advice from affected airports was simple and practical: check with your airline before coming to the terminal.
Passengers, Staff and the Grind of Unexpected Delays
Not every traveller saw the disruption as an indictment of technology—some took the slower pace as a reminder of how resilient human systems can be. “They set up extra desks and started checking people in manually,” said Ahmed El-Khatib, an IT consultant stuck in Berlin who had been meant to fly to Rome. “The staff did what they could. You could see the relief when they stamped a boarding pass by hand.”
Still, frustration simmered. “We’re used to instant confirmations on our phones,” said Anke Müller, a teacher from Hamburg stranded at the Berlin airport. “To be made to wait without clear information—isn’t it odd that all our layers of convenience make us more exposed when they fail?”
Airport employees worked overtime to keep the flow moving. Ground handlers who normally scan bar codes with handheld devices reverted to handwritten tags; check-in agents used spreadsheets printed out minutes earlier. The scene was not cinematic chaos but wearied endurance—staff reading names aloud, passengers forming ad hoc queues, the slow trundle of suitcases over tile.
Wider Implications: Supply Chains, Contracts and Accountability
Experts say this incident highlights a key point: cybersecurity is not just an IT problem for a single vendor to solve. It is a governance issue that touches procurement policies, cross-border regulation and corporate liability. When airports and airlines outsource software that becomes mission-critical, how do regulators ensure resilience?
“We need contractual requirements for incident response, mandatory resilience testing, and better information-sharing between the private sector and governments,” argued Priya Nair, a policy researcher focused on infrastructure resilience. “Public-private partnerships have to be more than talking shops. They need teeth.”
In Europe, the question of who coordinates a response to such incidents is also political. The European Union has frameworks for cybersecurity cooperation, but the on-the-ground execution often relies on national cyber units and the affected companies themselves.
Practical Takeaways for Travellers (and Authorities)
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Check before you travel: Confirm flight status with the airline rather than relying solely on departure boards or third-party apps.
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Allow extra time: If systems are down, lines will move more slowly and manual checks take longer.
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Keep paperwork accessible: A printed itinerary, passport and proof of booking can be quicker than trying to download or print at the terminal.
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For authorities: regularly test vendor resilience and require incident response plans that include manual fallbacks and cross-airport coordination.
Questions That Stay With You
When technology fails, we are left with human improvisation: check-in clerks and baggage handlers, voice calls instead of APIs, and the patient shuffling of people who need to get somewhere. That improvisation can be heroic, but it is also costly and uneven. Should the architects of our travel system accept this fragility as an operational risk, or treat it as a solvable design flaw?
And for readers: How much of your daily life relies on systems you barely notice—and what would it take for you to change your habits if those systems go dark? We live in an age of staggering convenience. Moments like this are blunt instruments, blunt reminders.
Looking Ahead
By the afternoon, engineers were engaged in the painstaking work of untangling digital knots: restoring services, validating backups, and ensuring that moving from manual back to automated operations did not introduce new errors. The full cause remained under investigation, and authorities promised updates.
For now, airports and airlines will tally not just delayed flights and canceled itineraries, but the reputational and logistical costs of a day when little screens went dark and people—quietly, sometimes angrily, often helpfully—stepped in to keep the world moving.
We are more connected than ever. That connection brings incredible freedom—and new dependencies. How we shore up those dependencies will shape not just travel, but how societies function when the next digital storm arrives.
