Travelers experience significant delays at German airports as an IT outage disrupts border control processes. The incident highlights the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to technical failures.
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| German airports face severe disruptions due to an IT malfunction within the Federal Criminal Police Office. Border controls are severely impacted, leading to delays and passenger frustration. Berlin Airport. File Image Courtesy: The Kronen Zeitung |
Berlin, Germany - January 5, 2025:
Several major German airports experienced significant disruptions on Friday due to an IT malfunction within the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) network. The Interior Ministry confirmed that the incident had a purely technical origin and was not the result of a cyberattack.
The malfunction primarily impacted border control procedures for travelers entering or leaving Germany from non-Schengen countries, where stricter checks are required. This led to manual passport controls, causing delays and lengthy queues at affected airports, including Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, and Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden.
In some cases, aircraft processing was delayed, and passengers faced extended waiting times, with reports of over 450 people being held up in one terminal.
The BKA is actively working with relevant authorities to restore normal operations and investigate the root cause of the malfunction. While some airports reported a return to normal operations by Friday evening, it is expected to take several days to fully resolve the issue.