Lufthansa reports widespread flight cancellations due to IT systems glitch

Lufthansa fleet (Image: Reuters)

German carrier Deutsche Lufthansa AG on February 15 reported widespread cancellations and grounding of its group flights, due to a glitch in the airline's computer systems.

"There is a group-wide IT system failure," a Lufthansa spokesperson was reported as saying. The company said is investigating the matter and is taking measures towards resolving the issue at the earliest.

By the time preliminary reports had emerged, it was not clear whether Lufthansa flights were already airborne were also directed to land.

Photos and videos from several airports across Germany showed chaos with thousands of stranded passengers waiting to be checked in.

Shares in Lufthansa, which also owns SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings, were down 1.2 percent at 0936 GMT.

The company, in all, has Europe's largest airline by fleet size with a total of around 700 aircraft.

Passengers on social media platforms said the failure had forced the company to board planes using pen and paper and that the company was unable to digitally process passengers' luggage.

In a tweet, Lufthansa said, "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."

The IT system failure comes two days ahead of planned strikes at seven German airports, which are expected to lead to major disruptions.

With Reuters inputs