By John Ikani
German airline Lufthansa is bouncing back from a company-wide IT outage that disrupted its operations at Frankfurt airport, stranding thousands of passengers on Wednesday.
Lufthansa took to Twitter to report that their flight operations were stabilizing, and that departures were resuming at the airport.
The airline anticipates a smoother day of operations on Thursday, with most flights expected to be on schedule.
In a statement, Lufthansa explained that a telecoms service provider’s fibre optic cables were damaged during construction work in Frankfurt, causing an IT system outage at the airport.
The situation resulted in flight cancellations and delays that affected airlines in the Lufthansa Group, which includes Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, and Swiss.
The airline issued an apology to their passengers, expressing regret over the inconvenience caused by the IT outage.
Lufthansa recommended that passengers in Frankfurt avoid travelling to the airport, and suggested that those with domestic flights switch to Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s national rail service, free of charge until Sunday.
Although shares in the company took an initial dip, they managed to pare earlier losses, closing down just 0.1%.
