Japan Airlines faces cyberattack, delays flights

Japan Airlines (JAL) announced a cyberattack on Thursday that led to delays in both domestic and international flights.

The airline, Japan’s second biggest after All Nippon Airways (ANA), said 24 domestic flights had been delayed by more than half an hour, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.

Public broadcaster NHK said problems with the airline’s baggage check-in system had caused delays at several Japanese airports but no major disruption was reported.

“We identified and addressed the cause of the issue. We are checking the system recovery status,” Japan Airlines (JAL) said in a post on social media platform X.

“Sales for both domestic and international flights departing today have been suspended. We apologise for any inconvenience caused,” the post said.

A JAL spokeswoman told AFP earlier the company had been subjected to a cyberattack.

Japanese media said it may have been a so-called DDoS attack aimed at overwhelming and disrupting a website or server.

Network disruption began at 7:24 am on Thursday (2224 GMT Wednesday), JAL said in a statement, adding that there was no impact on the safety of its operations.

Then “at 8:56am, we temporarily isolated the router (a device for exchanging data between networks) that was causing the disruption”, it said.

JAL shares fell as much as 2.5 per cent in morning trade after the news emerged, before recovering slightly.

The airline is just the latest Japanese firm to be hit by a cyberattack.

News.Az