As a result of engineers working on a railway line extension in Frankfurt, Germany for Deutsche Bahn, the German railway, a Deutsche Telekom fibre-optic cable was cut through by a drill and Lufthansa's IT system crashed as a consequence. This resulted in over 200 flights being cancelled on Wednesday morning and thousands of passengers delayed as check-in and boarding systems at Lufthansa seized up, while German air traffic control suspended incoming flights.
In addition to the 200 cancelled flights, as of around midday Wednesday, local time, approximately 125 flights had also been delayed. In a tweet, Lufthansa said: “As of this morning the airlines of the Lufthansa Group are affected by an IT outage, caused by construction work in the Frankfurt region.”
In a statement, Deutsche Telekom said: “Two cables have already been repaired overnight by our technical team and many customers are already back online,” adding that the situation was continuously improving.
The IT system failure comes two days ahead of planned strikes at seven German airports that have been expected to create major disruptions, including potentially at the Munich Security Conference where world leaders are due to gather. Frankfurt is a vital international transit hub and one of Europe's biggest airports.
