UK police have arrested a man in connection with the ransomware attack that crippled airline check-in systems in some parts of Europe, causing few significant disruptions but highlighting the vulnerability of global travel hubs to cybercriminals. The incident was the result of a hit against systems provided by Collins Aerospace, a major supplier of common-use passenger processing platforms found at airports globally, according to investigators.
Arrest comes as cybercrime investigation ramps up
The National Crime Agency said a man in his 40s was apprehended in West Sussex. He was then released on conditional bail pending the investigation’s ongoing work, a routine move in extended cyber cases that involve forensic searches of seized devices and can last for weeks. Behavior in those cases can range from cooperating with law enforcement during an investigation, to closing up shop and founding yet another cybercriminal operation.
Officials have not publicly identified the suspect, any co-conspirators or a known ransomware group behind the attack. The agency has stressed that the inquiry is still at an early stage, with investigators concentrating on mapping intrusion paths, tracing command-and-control infrastructure and ascertaining whether data theft came alongside the encryption event.
Check-in vendor impacts lead to airport delays
The breakdown resulted from an attack targeting check-in and departure control systems managed by Collins Aerospace, a unit of RTX. These “common-use” platforms, which often adhere to the CUPPS standard, allow several airlines to use check-in counters, printers and boarding systems at a terminal. When a vendor outage occurs, dozens of carriers can be affected in one fell swoop, leading to bottlenecks that cascade through baggage handling, security lines and gate operations.
At Brussels, Berlin, Dublin and London’s Heathrow airports, among others around Europe, travelers were left stranded as employees switched to contingency plans. Manual processing severely hobbles the passenger throughput while also enhancing the misconnection risk — resulting in stand pressure and crew scheduling tensions. They return to normal even more slowly once service is restored, thanks to aircraft and crew being out of position—something that’s a known theme in airline operations after big IT failures.
Why planes are a favored type of ransomware target
Usually in pursuit of maximum leverage, ransomware actors are increasingly abusing third-party dependencies (managed service providers, software vendors, shared platforms). Aviation is especially vulnerable, as airport operations rely on closely connected systems from different vendors: the processing of passengers, flight information screens, baggage sorting and load control. One bad vendor can be a pressure point for dozens of airlines and airports all at once.
European regulators have warned of this risk for years. ENISA’s threat landscape analyses always put ransomware in the topmost disruptive threats for critical sectors, and the NIS2 Directive extends mandatory risk management and incident reporting across transport—including aviation—with explicit wording on supply chain security. The UK’s NCSC also recommends that operators segment vendor access and impose multi-factor authentication, while offline immutable backups should enable a faster recovery of data from encryption events.
Past cases show the pattern. In 2021, a breach at aviation IT provider SITA leaked frequent flyer data for several global airlines, highlighting the systemic risk associated with shared platforms. Cyber incidents that take out screens or departure systems are also to blame, and more than one European airport has temporarily switched back to manual mode as a result of such an incident, which has become a pain for customers for hours, even days.
What investigators will seek in the ransomware case
Forensic investigators will work to identify the original infection vector—whether phishing, credential stuffing, a bug exploit, or use of a remote management tool—and map lateral movement within the provider’s network. They will also work to categorize families of malware, based on examination of encryption routines, ransom notes and overlaps in infrastructure or techniques from other known actors.
A central question is whether the attackers exfiltrated passenger data, employee credentials or operational details prior to activating encryption. Double-extortion methods — where criminals co-opt the data they stole and threaten to leak it — have become common. If evidence of data heist comes to light, regulators and impacted companies could be forced to grapple with new responsibilities under aviation security rules and data protection laws.
Operational lessons for airports and airlines
From the common systems perspective, airports and carriers will reevaluate dependency maps and failover designs for common-use systems—making certain they can survive with at least minimal throughput without a primary vendor. That generally includes hand-held or kiosk-based check-in, preprinted bag tags and obvious travel triage of passengers. Some clauses in contracts with technology suppliers now require security controls, logging, and incident response cooperation to expedite joint recovery operations.
Meanwhile, authorities have for the time being declared that airport operations are mostly business as usual, but they warn that investigations into complicated ransomware campaigns can drag on. The arrest is an indication of progress, but the larger challenge remains: the need to harden a global aviation system where one vendor compromise can again shut down travel across multiple countries.
