Aer Lingus cancels Dublin-origin flights, cites IT outage

LONDON (AP) — The Irish carrier Aer Lingus canceled all flights out of Dublin to European and U.K. destinations Saturday after a major computer networking incident knocked offline its check-in and boarding systems and website, the company said.

It said all outgoing flights from Dublin beginning at mid-afternoon were canceled, and a number of Dublin-bound flights from European destinations were also canceled. Flights from Portugal and Spain were delayed, it said.

An Aer Lingus spokesperson said later by email that connectivity had been restored by the impacted network provider — which they did not name — and the airline was getting IT services back online.

The spokesperson said the provider had identified the reason for the incident “and we are not treating it as a cyberware/ransomware attack at this time.” They did not elaborate.

In all, 51 flights were canceled, Aer Lingus said, adding that transatlantic flights operating out of Shannon Airport were not affected but that transatlantic service from Dublin operated with delays and reduced passenger numbers due to security restrictions related to the systems outage.