Air traffic gradually resumed on Wednesday followingnoon at Frankfurt (west) and Munich (south) airports following a major computer outage caused by construction work that affected the Lufthansa airline group.
“The outage is resolved, air traffic is resuming in Frankfurt and Munich,” a Lufthansa spokesman told AFP.
For several hours, flights from the German airline group, which also owns Austrian Airlines, Swiss, Brussels Airlines, had been suspended at the two largest German airports because of this massive computer failure.
Due to the “lack of space”, the Lufthansa planes being grounded, “no landing was made” in Frankfurt for several hours, an airport spokesman told AFP.
At the end of the morning, “some planes were able to land once more, but in isolation”, he added.
In Munich, the country’s second airport “hub”, “isolated flight cancellations” had also been decided, according to its manager.
These mainly concerned domestic German flights. But some international routes were also affected.
According to the press, Bayern Munich footballers stayed longer than expected in Paris on Wednesday morning, due to the delay of their plane, the day following their victory once morest PSG in the Champions League.
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Despite the announcement of a return to normal at Frankfurt airport, confusion still reigned among travelers who formed lines of several hundred meters in front of the counters, noted an AFP journalist.
Flights were still showing as canceled or delayed on information screens, while some travelers complained regarding the lack of communication from the airport.
“Nobody really helps us here, they’re all very rude,” Kathy Murphy, a 69-year-old American, retired teacher, told AFP.
The outage is due to “construction work in the Frankfurt area”, Lufthansa said on Twitter.
Four internet cables operated by Deutsche Telekom were “damaged” on Tuesday evening, during work on a train line, causing this breakdown, a spokesman for the telecommunications group told AFP.
Result: the group’s computer system, responsible in particular for boarding and passenger check-in, ceased to function.
“We ask our customers flying domestic routes within Germany to book a train ticket and request a refund,” Lufthansa said.
