Prague Airport hit by global IT outage, faces flight delays

A major global IT outage has caused chaos and delays at airports across Europe and the world, also affecting Prague Airport. The outage, which began early this morning and is related to a failed update of a cybersecurity software, has impacted airports in Spain, Germany, the UK, the US, Turkey, Australia, and now Prague. Some departing planes at Prague Airport have been delayed, with several departures suspended, including easyJet flights to Amsterdam and Swiss flights to Zurich.

According to Prague Airport spokesperson, Petra Divíšková, the cause of the outage is a technical fault with check-in systems worldwide. While some airlines have been able to check in passengers manually, the process is taking longer than usual. 

At the nearby Berlin-Brandenburg Airport, no flights were able to take off or land until 8 a.m. due to the same issue. 

Divíšková says that Prague Airport is working to stabilize the situation, but it is unclear how long it will take to resolve the issue. As of 11 a.m. the airport reported some delayed flights and advised passengers to be patient as there may be further delays and slower check-in procedures.

All connecting flights between Prague, Zurich, and Amsterdam have been canceled. Flights to other destinations may run with substantial delays due to manual check-in processes, Prague Airport has warned on its website and social media.

“Our Foreign Police Inspectorates are monitoring the situation and we are ready to increase the number of deployed police officers," said a police spokesperson. Meanwhile, IT experts are working to fix the issue, saying that a failed Crowdstrike software update may be to blame.

According to Ondřej Filip, executive director of CZ.NIC, the failed update has caused instability in Windows, leading to a cascading effect on other global computer systems. He believes that this issue will be resolved soon, but there may be long-term repercussions, such as the loss of valuable data.

IT researcher Kevin Beaumont of Arcadia Group tells British media outlet BBC News: "As systems no longer start, impacted systems will need to be started in ‘Safe Mode’, to remove the faulty update. This is incredibly time-consuming and will take organizations days to do at scale."

Interior Minister Vít Rakušan has assured the public that the outage only affects Prague Airport and that other key IT systems, such as banking and healthcare, are not impacted.