“Long waiting times and delays could continue into Monday,” said airport spokeswoman Ihsane Chioua Lekhli, according to Gazet van Antwerpen, after Brussels Airport canceled 44 departing flights on Sunday, six of which were diverted to other airports. The step followed a request from the Belgian air-traffic service Skeyes for airlines to drop half of Saturday’s 257 scheduled departures because manual check-in created long queues.
The trouble began late Friday when ransomware hit Collins Aerospace’s MUSE software, the electronic check-in and baggage platform used at more than 100 airports. “We have been informed of an electronic malfunction in our MUSE program at several airports,” the company said, adding that engineers were “actively working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.”
By early Saturday Brussels Airport had already canceled at least 17 departures, diverted four others, and seen most remaining flights leave more than an hour late. “Unfortunately, it will still impact our passengers that check-in has to be done manually,” said Chioua Lekhli. The airport’s own network remained intact, yet desks lacked scanners and bag-tag printers, so staff issued handwritten boarding passes and sorted luggage by hand.
A spokesman said external service providers were repairing the system but that the airport had “no visibility on the timing yet.” Brussels Airlines, the hub’s largest carrier, fared better because it relied on a separate platform. “We decided to cancel nine departing and nine arriving flights, allowing us to rebook passengers on other services,” said airline spokeswoman Joëlle Neeb. Some carriers did not comply with the request to halve their schedules, news agency Belga reported.
The outage spread across Europe. Berlin Brandenburg warned of longer waits, London Heathrow switched to handwritten boarding cards for several airlines, and Dublin Airport temporarily evacuated Terminal 2 after a separate security alert compounded the backlog. FlightAware recorded hundreds of Saturday delays, some lasting ten hours. Eurocontrol urged operators to cancel half of Brussels flights until 04:00 Monday, yet only 44 Sunday departures were grounded.
“The fragile and interdependent nature of the digital ecosystem that supports air travel was laid bare,” said Rafe Billing, director of threat intelligence at Sophos. Belgian outlets cited industry sources blaming the Locky Locker ransomware gang, though investigators have not confirmed the attackers’ identity.
The European Commission said it was “closely monitoring” the incident with Eurocontrol, ENISA, airports, and airlines, and stressed that flight safety remained unaffected. Passengers were advised to come to Brussels Airport only if their flight was confirmed, to arrive two hours before Schengen departures and three hours before long-haul journeys, and to keep checking information channels for updates. On Sunday evening airport officials said Collins Aerospace had not provided a timeline for full restoration and that further cancellations or delays remained possible.
The preparation of this article relied on a news-analysis system.