Problems nationwide for hours
Fixed computer failure at German airports
Updated on January 3, 2025 – 6:37 p.mReading time: 2 min.
The federal police computers at German airports were down for hours. Technical problems caused long queues in the security area.
There were significant delays at major German airports nationwide for hours on Friday afternoon. The reason for this was a large-scale computer failure at the Federal Police. The IT system responsible for the automated entry control did not work, said a spokesman for the St. Augustin Federal Police upon request.
On Friday evening, the problem was resolved after around four hours, as the spokesman for the “Bild” newspaper explained. “Clearances can be carried out in the usual way again.”
Previously, the police had to carry out the checks manually. There were “increased waiting times and backlogs”. This was a “nationwide system failure”. As a spokesman for Cologne/Bonn Airport confirmed to t-online, only the Federal Police’s IT systems were affected and not those of the airport itself.
The situation at Düsseldorf Airport was particularly difficult. There were disruptions in border control for flights to and from non-Schengen areas such as Turkey, Egypt or Qatar. “At the moment, entry and exit are only possible here with severe delays,” it said. EU destinations and other states that belong to the Schengen area were not affected. The affected passengers would be provided with water by airport employees.
Berlin Airport said: “In some cases there are longer waiting times when entering from non-Schengen areas, but there is no entry stop.” According to a spokesman, Munich Airport was also affected by the disruption, at least temporarily. However, there was initially no impact on the flight plan.
According to the Offenburg Federal Police, 450 passengers have to wait in the terminal at Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport in Baden-Württemberg. Two machines cannot be dispatched due to the disruption. They were supposed to take off to Morocco and Albania.
A spokesman for the federal police at Frankfurt Airport told the “Bild” newspaper: “Our colleagues have to do a lot of things manually that the system previously did. We’re currently still getting it done.” The trigger for the disruption is not yet known.
There were also IT problems at Dortmund Airport, as an airport spokeswoman explained to t-online. The airport was informed at around 2 p.m. and controls were resumed at 3 p.m. “So far the outage has had no impact on air traffic,” said the spokeswoman.
According to the Federal Police, a police search and information system in Hamburg failed, resulting in delays in border controls at the airport. Since requests currently have to be made via a different, slower system, processing takes a little longer. However, he emphasized that there was no chaos. The problem only affects passengers who come from third countries outside the EU or want to go there – and therefore have to go through border controls. The security gates are expressly not affected.
Responsibility lies with the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). The police information system Inpol is an electronic data network between the federal and state governments. It is considered the heart of the information network of the federal and state police forces. All police authorities can store and access data there.