IT crash causes problems at airports

“There are currently no takeoffs at Zurich Airport,” a Skyguide spokesperson confirmed on Friday afternoon. The reason is IT problems at air traffic control. When landing, capacity is limited to 50 percent. Significant delays should be expected. The duration of the restriction is still open. Also the cause of the problem. We are working on a solution to the problem. According to data from Flightradar and Zurich Airport, the first plane took off again at around 4:45 p.m.

The collapse comes at a very sensitive time for Skyguide. Summer vacations will start in many cantons in the coming days. Airports will be full of passengers eager to take off on time.

Skyguide CEO confirms series of crashes

Additionally, this is not the only recent incident involving air traffic control (CH Media reported). Alex Bristol, head of Skyguide, told CH Media in April: “There is already an undeniable increase in incidents, which is unfortunate. Unfortunately, when you launch technical innovations as we have done in our system, such incidents can never be ruled out. However, Safety is always guaranteed.

Skyguide was forced to respond due to a backlog of errors: “We have introduced a temporary reduction in capacity for flight movements in Zurich and Geneva between the beginning of March and the beginning of June 2024 in order to have additional reserve in daily operations.” Bristol in April.

Rosti demanded answers.

Not only that, “we will also release two software updates due to the summer peak season. This should significantly improve stability.” These are so-called bug fixes and firmware upgrades. In addition, Skyguide also had to respond to Transport Minister Albert Rösti – also because Skyguide’s CTO spoke of a “perfect storm” and a “crisis” in an internal message.

The two updates should significantly reduce the risk of a failure, Bristol said in an April interview. There are also more patches that we initiate after each incident. “But it is not possible to rule out a failure in principle.” That last statement now rings true.

“Summer is going to be tough”

But it's not just these disruptions that could wreak havoc on summer aviation. “I expect the summer of 2024 and 2025 to be very difficult, at least in Europe and North America,” said Bresol. More difficult than 2023.

“Because traffic and demand keeps increasing,” Bristol says. At the same time, there are many factors in an unstable situation. There are industrial disputes in many places, so more strikes at airlines and other European air traffic control companies or in ground handlers are likely to follow. In addition, the shortage of skilled workers remains a reality.