Indian low-cost carrier SpiceJet faced a ransomware attack leading to a host of passenger flight delays at Delhi Airport.
The news regarding the cyberattack was released on the morning of May 25, 2022, when scheduled airline flights were unable to depart from its Indian hubs at Delhi (DEL) and Hyderabad (HYD). According to the Times of India, it took several hours for the airline to solve the problem which saw hundreds of passengers stranded at local airports.
“Certain SpiceJet systems faced an attempted ransomware attack last night that impacted and slowed down morning flight departures today,” SpiceJet wrote in a statement, which was published on social media. “Our IT team has contained and rectified the situation and flights are operating normally now.”
This incident is not the first time this month that SpiceJet passengers have faced flight delays due to issues with its systems.
On May 21, 2022, several SpiceJet flights faced delays of up to 90 minutes at DEL airport as the airline failed to complete its daily payment to the Airports Authority of India (AAI). According to a statement issued by the Civil Aviation Authority of India, the air traffic control of AAI was instructed not to give clearance to the airline’s aircraft to take-off until the payment was made.
Speaking to the Financial Express, a spokesperson for SpiceJet explained that the carrier failed to pay on time due to a glitch in its software, but once the issue had been resolved, the airline was able to continue normal operations. “Due to a technical glitch in SAP, the automatic daily payment could not be processed. The same is being made manually to AAI which has been apprised of the issue. SpiceJet’s flight operations are now continuing normally,” the spokesperson said.