Flights grounded after Lufthansa technological failure

AN IT fault left thousands of passengers stranded on Lufthansa flights across Europe on Wednesday, February 15.

Flights across the German carrier and its associated groups were grounded for much of the day after construction work damaged glass-fibre cables in Frankfurt.

The technological fault caused disruption to the company’s digital systems which forced airport staff to check in passengers  using pen and paper and disrupted luggage check in services.The fault also caused delays and cancellations to flights affecting thousands of passengers.

Lufthansa took to Twitter to apologise for the fault, acknowledging that it was causing flight delays and cancellations. The flight carrier asked passengers travelling on domestic flights to book a train ticket instead and request a refund.

The disruption causes shares in Germany’s flagship airline to drop by 1.5 per cent on Wednesday morning. The company also owns several other European airlines including Brussels Airlines, Swiss, and Eurowings.

The outage came at a difficult time for the airline. Lufthansa is preparing for strike action which will cause disruption at several major German airports on Friday, February 17.