Sudden disruptions hit airports during peak holiday departures as a global IT outage disrupted flight operations. In Spain, the most noticeable impact came from Aena, which reported early in the morning that its entire airport network was affected by the Microsoft failure, causing delays across many flights. By mid-morning, the company announced a gradual return to normal operations, with all airports active but functioning at a slower pace than usual.
During the first hours of the day, Aena activated contingency systems and managed several processes manually to keep operations on track for the day’s schedule. The airport operator stated that both departures and arrivals were experiencing delays that were steadily decreasing, though flights had not been halted at any point.
It was not the only carrier affected. Iberia also felt the impact of the security network outage from the tech giant. By 11:07 a.m., the Iberia line of the IAG group noted only 21 short-haul flight delays within Spain and Europe related to the IT system issues, with no long-haul delays reported. The airline’s punctuality was visibly affected, with on-time performance around 64 percent for the day.
The routes most affected included connections to Berlin, Amsterdam, and Zurich, which even paused some services for several hours, according to Eurocontrol. By mid-morning, all three destinations had resumed operations but with slower throughput than normal and substantial delays continuing to accumulate.
The airlines advised travelers to arrive at the airports with greater lead times than usual, ensuring they could navigate the slower processing and any remaining checks without missing their departures.