German airliner Lufthansa Group is working to restore services after an unspecified IT glitch – possibly caused by a sliced broadband cable – forced it to delay or cancel flights.
The company confirmed on Twitter at 1055 UTC that: "Since this morning, the airlines of Lufthansa Group have been affected by an IT failure caused by construction work in the Frankfurt region. Unfortunately, this has led to flight delays and cancellations."
It subsequently added: "We are working flat out on a solution. Until then, we ask all affected guests flying on LH domestic flights within Germany to book a train ticket and apply for a refund on http://lh.com."
Lufthansa's global flight operations center is based in the outskirts of Frankfurt airport and according to one report, engineers at Deutsche Telekom may have inadvertently hit a broadband cable when digging in the locale.
There's no insight into whether Lufthansa's presumed backup for that connection also failed, as was the case with Aer Lingus in October last year. Aer Lingus execs claimed at the time that data was mirrored to two separate sites by their IT services provider, and that the lines had been replicated into both.
If indeed Frankfurt construction work is to blame for its troubles, then Lufthansa may want to reconsider resiliency of its systems, as one person on Twitter mentioned.
German engineering at its best! A single fiber cut causes a global outage! Where is the redundancy?
Ground systems that include check-in services were hit by the IT issue, and local air traffic control are sending planes off to other German airports including Nuremberg, Cologne and Dusseldorf.
There are reports that the IT issues are forcing Lufthansa to resort to pen and paper when boarding planes and that it is unable to process passengers' luggage. And pictures are emerging on social media of the queues customers are forced to join.
Line to rebook or get an update from on the ground staff at Frankfurt Airport is ridiculous. Can I just get my bag from a cancelled flight @lufthansa ?!?!?!?!? pic.twitter.com/eUTl4cBtND
We’ve asked Lufthansa and Deutsche Telekom to comment. ®
Source: The register