Dive Brief:
- Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is heading into what officials described as the busiest Labor Day weekend travel period in the airport’s history, as it continues to grapple with widespread system outages following a cyberattack. Airport officials said they expect more than 500,000 passengers over the next six days, in a Thursday media briefing.
- Travelers coming in and out of the Pacific Northwest’s largest airport are still confronting blank flight display screens and baggage display boards, said Lance Lyttle, aviation managing director at the Port of Seattle, which operates the airport. Many other services for the Port of Seattle remain offline, including the facilities’ primary websites, phone, email, Wi-Fi and common use check-in kiosks.
- “The investigation into the cyberattack is ongoing and the port will provide appropriate updates as they become available,” Lyttle said. There is no estimated time for a complete recovery and restoration of operations.
Dive Insight:
The Port of Seattle’s recovery efforts remain underway almost a week after a cyberattack began disrupting services last Saturday. Officials did not describe the nature of the cyberattack, but said airport staff started turning on and testing systems for international and low-volume carriers, which are the most heavily impacted by the outage.
“These carriers are not able to access our common use online assistance during the outage, and may still be utilizing manual, written boarding passes and luggage checks. This has caused some longer lines for their customers,” Lyttle said in the Thursday media briefing.
Baggage sorting systems were restored earlier this week and officials are still working to restore all baggage systems.
The airport’s security systems were not impacted by the attack, and screening measures remain intact, said Greg Hawko, the Transportation Security Agency’s federal security director for Washington state.
“Most people will not notice too much of a difference to their experience,” Lyttle said. “Aircraft are arriving and departing as normal and have been through this entire situation.”
