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India travel: Spicejet faces ransomware attack; flights impacted

The malware had slowed down departure of flights on Wednesday morning

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India's low-cost airline SpiceJet has said that a ransomware attack on Tuesday night delayed some flights. Hundreds of passengers were stranded at various airports as flight operations were impacted on Wednesday and Thursday.

The airline is working to contain the damage and to a large extent have contained and rectified the situation. But the initial snag has had a cascading effect on flights leading to delays.

Responding to a frustrated passenger on Twitter, the airline wrote: "We deeply regret the inconvenience caused. Our departures today were affected due to a ransomware attack last night. While our team has to a large extent contained & rectified the situation, this has had a cascading effect on our flights leading to delays."

SpiceJet was trying to rectify the situation until Thursday morning as well, impacting operations.

Earlier in the day, a SpiceJet spokesperson confirmed the ransomware attack on Tuesday night that slowed down flights' departure.

“Certain SpiceJet systems faced an attempted ransomware attack last night that impacted and slowed down morning flight departures today. Our IT team has contained and rectified the situation and flights are operating normally now,” the SpiceJet tweeted after getting numerous queries over the delay in departure.

It further said, “Some flights to airports where there are restrictions on night operations have been cancelled. SpiceJet is in touch with experts and cybercrime authorities on the issue.”

Soon after this update, passengers had taken to Twitter to vent their anger at the airline’s slow service.

One of the passengers, Saurav Goyal tweeted, “Extremely poor customer service by flyspicejet. My flight to Srinagar SG 473 scheduled at 6.25am from Delhi today is still at the airport. The Staff has no clue and poor excuse is ‘server down’ so cannot take printouts. Passengers are suffering.”

After a series of these tweets, the airline apologised to the passengers for the inconvenience. It wrote, “Hi, please note that certain SpiceJet systems faced an attempted ransomware attack last night that impacted and slowed down morning flight departures today. Further, the team is working constantly to clear all departures. Regret any inconvenience caused.”

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