An IT outage at Germany's Lufthansa caused huge flight delays and disruption across the group's airlines, the company said today, adding that the reason for the failure was yet unknown, news agency Reuters reported.
"There is a group-wide IT system failure," Reuters reported quoting a Lufthansa official.
Photos and videos from many German airports revealed mayhem, with thousands of stranded travellers awaiting check-in.
Lufthansa was working hard to resolve the issue, according to Bild, quoting a company spokesperson.
Customers on social media stated the breakdown caused the firm to board planes with pen and paper and that the corporation was unable to process passengers' luggage digitally.
Lufthansa stated in a tweet, "Currently, the airlines of the Lufthansa Group are affected by an IT outage. This is causing flight delays and cancellations. We regret the inconvenience this is causing our passengers."
At 0936 GMT, shares of Lufthansa, which also owns SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, and Eurowings, were down 1.2 percent.
With a total fleet size of roughly 700 aircraft, the business is Europe's largest airline by fleet size.
The IT system failure occurs just two days before planned strikes at seven German airports, which are likely to cause significant disruptions.
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(With Inputs From Agencies)