Germany’s aviation safety agency on Wednesday decided to close Germany’s largest airport in Frankfurt due to a large-scale failure of the Lufthansa airline’s IT system.

Arriving aircraft are directed to other airports such as Düsseldorf, Cologne and Nuremberg. Thus, aviation authorities are trying to avoid chaos in the sky over Frankfurt Airport.

Earlier, the Bild newspaper reported that the planes could not take off as a result of the accident. Air traffic in Germany was seriously disrupted.

At the same time, it is specified that all airlines belonging to the Lufthansa group are affected. Violations affected the check-in and landing systems. It is not known exactly how many flights are delayed or canceled, but the problems have disrupted the plans of thousands of passengers.

The German airline attributed the problem to construction work in Frankfurt, which damaged several Deutsche Telekom fiber optic cables and a Lufthansa IT system.

Lufthansa added that the repair of the cable damage will last until noon on Wednesday.

Passengers have reported on social media that the issue, which has affected many airports, has forced the company to arrange boarding with pen and paper and that it cannot digitally process passengers’ luggage.

Source: Reuters, TASS