Hackers Ground 1,400 Passengers At Warsaw Airport
Around 1,400 passengers of Polish airline LOT were grounded at Warsaw's Chopin airport on Sunday after hackers attacked the airline ground computer systems used to issue flight plans.
The computer system was hacked in the afternoon and fixed after five hours, during which 10 of the state-owned carrier's national and international flights were cancelled and about a dozen more delayed, a spokesman said.
LOT was taking care of the passengers on Sunday evening and some were already able to board flights. LOT said it was providing hotels for those who needed to stay overnight.
At no point was the safety of ongoing flights compromised, the spokesman said, and flights destined for Warsaw were able to land safely. No other airports were affected, he added.
"We're using state-of-the-art computer systems, so this could potentially be a threat to others in the industry," the spokesman said. The attack in now being investigated by the authorities.
The airport itself was not affected, its spokesman said.
21 june 2015Malaysia Airlines is 'bankrupt'
Malaysia Airlines is "technically bankrupt", its chief executive has said, as he announced a restructuring programme and plans to cut about 6,000 jobs. The announcement follows the twin air disasters which forced its nationalisation last year. The airline said it had "offered jobs" to 14,000 of its 20,000 workforce.
The move was expected and follows the appointment of new chief executive Christoph Mueller in May. The airline is operating as normal and no flights are currently affected.
In March last year, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared with 239 passengers and crew aboard. The plane is still missing. Four months later, flight MH17 was shot down by a suspected ground-to-air missile while in Ukrainian airspace, with the loss of 298 passengers and crew. The two disasters proved to be the final straw for the already struggling business, which had reported losses for several years as a result of strong regional competition.
Malaysia Airlines plans to announce a rebranding on 1 September. Mr Mueller would not be drawn on whether this would mean a change to its name, but said "all constellations were open".
In a statement, the airline said its immediate priority was to "stop the bleeding" in 2015, then to stabilise next year and start growing again by 2017.
01 june 2015Air traffic control technical failure closed Belgian airspace.
The problem began at 0945 local time Wednesday morning 27 May, 2015. Eurocontrol recently tweeted there will be a “gradual restarting of systems that will start at 12UTC with some flights to/from Brussels.”
As of 1 p.m. local time, Brussels Airlines had to cancel 85 flights, including four long-haul flights to Africa,” airline spokesperson Wencke Lemmes told ATW in Brussels.
She added that more than 40% of planned flights for Wednesday had to be canceled; seven so far have been diverted to other airports. “This affects more than 11,000 passengers from Brussels Airlines. We do hope, that we can operate several other long haul flights, like to New York JFK, later during the day,” Lemmes said.
Until noon, Zaventem had to cancel 109 flights; 25 had been diverted to other airports around Europe, including Frankfurt, Paris and Maastricht Aachen.
No exact details had been given what is the cause of the technical failure.
27 may 2015