Bomb threats disrupt at least 22 flights across Europe, raising hybrid war fears

The series of warnings on Thursday affected flights between Italy, Ireland, the UK, Spain, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Finland, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Portugal, France, Greece, Serbia and Czechia. On Tuesday seven planes across Europe were searched or diverted after malicious hoax bomb alerts. On Monday a flight from the UK to Bulgaria was diverted after a threat that was apparently without substance.

Affected Airlines

The bomb threats on Thursday affected flights by Ryanair, Aer Lingus, Wizz Air, Finnair, easyJet, Aegean Airlines, Iberia, Sky Express, Air Serbia and LOT. All landed safely. Searches of the planes found nothing suspicious.

Investigation Status

There is no intelligence yet pointing to any particular group or state actor, such as Russia or Iran, amid growing concerns over hybrid incidents targeting Europe. The EU transport commissioner, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, said it was too early to know if the incidents were linked but that any threats against civilians were unacceptable.

Bomb threats emailed to airports in Rome and Sofia were signed 'fighters of the Male State', according to sources at Aeroporti di Roma (ADR), which manages the city's two airports, and a text seen by Agence France-Presse. 'We, the fighters of the Male State, will make history with our actions today. Your feminist regime will remember this forever. The explosion will occur in 60 minutes. Today, your skies will turn red,' it said.

Operational Impact

The affected flights had knock-on effects but were a tiny fraction of the 27,400 flights scheduled in Europe on Thursday, according to the European air traffic control agency, Eurocontrol. The pilot of an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Rome that diverted to Évreux was being questioned by French authorities for initially refusing to land at a military base, according to French media reports.

The disruption followed cyber-attacks this week against supermarket refrigeration systems. A Kremlin spokesperson said on Thursday it was 'absurd' to blame Vladimir Putin's administration for the fridge hacks. 'We have such baseless accusations against our country, implicating it in everything,' Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Security Analysis

Aviation experts say fake threats occur daily but that such a number of credible threats, even if malicious hoaxes, appears to point to coordinated action. Capt Martin Drake, a former airline pilot and technical adviser to the Balpa union, said airlines had security teams who assessed each threat on a traffic-light scale: green to keep going or red to be grounded, with an amber option only for flights yet to take off, allowing tighter checks and searches of the plane before clearing it to fly.

Rhys Jones, an analyst at Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation intelligence firm, said the threats seemed linked but 'a reasonably chaotic campaign with no particular region targeted', and while they could weaken future security responses through the normalisation of threats, simply creating disruption could be regarded as a success by those carrying out the hoaxes.