Heathrow Airport passengers face another day of disruption after cyber attack on check-in systems

Flights have been delayed and cancelled from the major London airport since Friday because its automatic check-in systems were hit by "technical issues".

Brussels and Berlin airports were also impacted after software provider Collins Aerospace, which works for several airlines at airports worldwide, had its systems infiltrated by cyber criminals.

Passengers were met with queues, delays and confusion, as airport staff were forced to carry out check-in and boarding operations manually.

The disruption continues this morning, with flights from Heathrow to Stuttgart, Dublin and Zurich currently showing as delayed.

Brussels Airport said it had "no indication yet" when the system would be operational again and requested airlines to suspend half its departing flights for today.

The European Union's cybersecurity agency confirmed the disruptions were caused by problems with automatic check-in systems, following a third-party ransomware attack.

The technology allows multiple providers to use the same check-in desks and departure gates at an airport, rather than requiring their own.

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"The type of ransomware has been identified. Law enforcement is involved to investigate," the agency ENISA said in a statement.

According to flight tracking data, a dozen flights were cancelled and more than 200 were delayed at Heathrow Airport this weekend because of the cyber attack.

Heathrow apologised to those who had faced delays but stressed "the vast majority of flights have continued to operate".

"Work continues to resolve and recover from Friday's outage of a Collins Aerospace airline system that impacted check-in," Heathrow said.

"We apologise to those who have faced delays, but by working together with airlines, the vast majority of flights have continued to operate.

"We encourage passengers to check the status of their flight before travelling to Heathrow and to arrive no earlier than three hours for long-haul flights and two hours for short-haul."

It is understood British Airways at Terminal 5 remains unaffected and has been operating as normal.

Collins Aerospace said it was working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, but has yet to disclose what went wrong or how long the outage is expected to last.

It said: "We have become aware of a cyber-related disruption to our Muse (multi-user system environment) software in select airports.

"We are actively working to resolve the issue and restore full functionality to our customers as quickly as possible.

"The impact is limited to electronic customer check-in and baggage drop and can be mitigated with manual check-in operations."