A suspected cyberattack continues to disrupt some services at Seattle-Tacoma Airport and many passengers are still suffering.
Officials say only four flights were canceled due to the suspected cyberattack. The attack has crippled operations directly connected to the Port of Seattle’s web-based system, forcing several airlines to rewrite everything by hand.
International airlines are affected, but five domestic airlines and their passengers are also struggling.
In fact, you can see this effect right here. This display board would normally show information about arriving and departing flights. But it’s black.
And that’s not all.
A day after a suspected cyberattack brought down the Port of Seattle’s entire web-based system, SEA Airport is resorting to old-fashioned human resources work.
Now the airport relies instead on green-clad volunteers to do the work.
This is perhaps the most visible result of a cyberattack that port officials discovered Saturday morning. This and the black display boards above them.
At a press conference late in the afternoon, the head of SEA Airport said they had been working around the clock to resolve the crisis.
Lance Lyttle was asked if they had any idea what the cyber attackers were planning.
“So we don’t know exactly what someone might have in mind,” said Lyttle, SEA’s managing director for aviation. “We are still conducting active investigations at this time. We are focused on getting the affected systems back up and running so that we can return to normal operations for passengers and airlines.”
This poses a challenge for passengers of several international and domestic airlines that are directly connected to the port’s web system.
Frontier Airlines employees are now forced to write baggage tags by hand, and passengers must check their bags in to the airline themselves. But first they must clear the TSA, whose strict rules about what is allowed still apply.
None of this is a surprise.
“No,” said Fred Hiles, a Frontier passenger on his way home to Wisconsin. “They want you to make all your information available to everyone. How could anyone be surprised?”
The good news is that most airlines are not affected by the attack. They use their own, independent systems.
But there’s more bad news: Airport officials have no idea when their system will be operational again.
They promise to hold another press conference tomorrow, so stay tuned.
