Lufthansa suffers global IT system failure causing widespread flight cancellations

LONDON – Germany’s national flag carrier Lufthansa is today experiencing a widespread cancellation of scheduled flights. The airline reports that the disruption has been caused by an IT problem with its computer systems.

Lufthansa global outage

Today, a spokesman for the airline told news source Reuters that “there is a groupwide IT system failure”

At the time of writing it appears that the outage is affecting the Lufthansa network globally, with the airline stating on its social media channels:

“Currently, the airlines of the Lufthansa Group are affected by an IT outage. This is causing flight delays and cancellations. We regret the inconvenience this is causing our passengers.”

Videos are beginning to surface showing passenger queues and disruption and airline terminals as a result of the outage. In some cases, it appears that the airline has resorted to manual boarding of some flights.

Global IT system outage for @Lufthansa_DE flight planning system.
Planes will be boarded manually but system needs to be operational for departure.#MSC2023 #munichsecurityconference #IT #security pic.twitter.com/MTOh1d4loH
— Benjamin Rohé 🇪🇺🇩🇪 🇸🇪 (@benjaminr) February 15, 2023

Update 10:20 UTC

Confirmation is coming through that the outage is worldwide. A spokesman for the airline has said that it is too early to determine the cause, and whether the widespread IT outage is due to a cyberattack.

Precise details of the actual number of flights affected is not available as yet. Local news source dw.com reports that German air traffic control has begun re-routing flights inbound to Frankfurt to alternative airports to control pressure on the hub.

Update 10:55 UTC

Lufthansa have advised that the cause of the system outage is construction work which has been in progress in the Frankfurt area. Inbound flights to Frankfurt continue to be diverted to alternative airports.