Scandinavian airline group SAS has revealed that it was targeted by a cyberattack on 15 February, with the result that its website and app were down for several hours. The incident, which affected several companies, led to some passengers' data – such as contact details, previous and upcoming flights, and the last four digits of credit-card numbers – being visible during the attack. SAS is currently investigating the incident, but says that there is no risk that credit-card information could be exploited, given the limited data that was exposed. Passport details and EuroBonus points were unaffected. The airline group warns that such attacks often come in batches. It is therefore taking "preventive measures" to ensure the safety of passengers. The cyberattack on SAS is the latest in a series of such attacks targeting companies across the industry. Eurocontrol recently warned that ransomware attacks – in which data is locked until a cash payment is made – amounted to 2.5 attempts per week during 2022, mostly targeting OEMs.

Lufthansa has suspended services across its network following an IT failure at its Frankfurt hub which has left many systems "not working". In a short statement, the airline says operations have been grounded and that passengers should expect disruption to services and check-in. It attributes the problem to "construction work in the Frankfurt region", adding: "We are working on a solution swiftly." Passengers travelling domestically in Germany are advised to rebook onto train services and apply for refunds.

The US Federal Aviation Administration will launch a safety review team to find ways to avoid near collisions between jets at airports, while the agency also faces pressure to accelerate the modernisation of its Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system and prevent safety-related halts to air traffic. “I have formed the safety review team to examine the US aerospace system’s structure, culture, processes, systems and integration of safety,” acting FAA administrator Billy Nolen said on 15 February during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. “Recent events remind us that we cannot become complacent and that we must continually invest in our aviation system.” Recent “close calls” between aircraft that lawmakers referred to during the hearing included a near collision on 4 February between a Southwest Airlines flight and a FedEx Express aircraft at Austin-Bergstrom International airport.Despite new procedures to add redundancy to the NOTAM system, Nolen says he cannot guarantee the agency can prevent another outage similar to the nationwide grounding on 11 January. “Could I sit here and tell you there will never be an issue on the NOTAM system? No, sir, I cannot,” Nolen said in response to a question asked by senator Ted Cruz during the hearing. “What I can say is we are making every effort to modernise and look at our procedures,” Nolen adds. The FAA on 11 January halted departing flights for nearly two hours due to an outage to its NOTAM system, which the agency says originated when a contractor “unintentionally deleted files” during an update to that system that provides pilots with real-time information on flight hazards and restrictions. The brief grounding of flights across the US national airspace resulted in a cascade of 1,300 flight cancellations and more than 9,500 flight delays for numerous airlines. Since that incident, the FAA now requires “a synchronisation delay to ensure that bad data from a database cannot affect a backup database”, Nolen says, adding that at least two people must now be present to improve oversight during database updates. Democrats and Republicans on the committee both agreed the FAA should accelerate its modernisation efforts to ensure safety and efficiency. During the hearing Cruz, the committee’s ranking Republican, expressed concern that “a single screwup” could ground all US air traffic. The FAA in response to the outage seeks ways to accelerate the modernisation of its NOTAM system, Nolen says, insisting that “a significant portion of the modernisation work will be complete by mid-2025”. Demanding a more secure redundancy, the committee’s chair senator Maria Cantwell during the hearing told Nolen: “I want to get an answer within a week about the NOTAM system having a separate backup, a totally separate backup that could be used.”. The FAA faces a backlog implementing new rules, many of which were mandated years ago by Congress. Scrutiny of the safety procedures and the NOTAM system have added relevance as Congress plans its latest FAA reauthorisation bill to set funding and priorities for the agency. The current legislation enacted in 2018 expires on 30 September.