Seven passenger aircraft across Europe were grounded and searched on Tuesday after a series of bomb threats received within hours of each other. A Ryanair flight from Manchester to Murcia was evacuated and swept for explosives on landing, while a LOT Polish Airlines flight from Heathrow was diverted to Warsaw’s Modlin airport for searches. The Warsaw airport was briefly closed but has since reopened.
Also on Tuesday, an SAS flight from Copenhagen to Warsaw’s Chopin airport, a Wizz Air flight from Bergamo to Sofia, a second flight to Sofia from Dublin, and two Ryanair services landing at Rome Fiumicino were searched after separate threats were received. One of the Ryanair flights was escorted by Italian fighter jets while landing. The incidents, which have not been linked, all come the day after a Wizz Air flight from Luton was forced to land in Budapest after receiving a bomb threat.
Two weeks ago, an Austrian Airlines flight from Israel was also forced to land at Sofia after receiving a threat that turned out to be false. So far, none of the authorities that searched the planes reported finding any evidence of devices or explosives. Analysts said that the frequency of threats suggested a co-ordinated effort to disrupt European air travel.
Anyone seeking to cause chaos knows that threats, however crude, will lead to disruption as airports, airlines and governments take any risk seriously. “It is no secret that attacking aviation has a significant, disproportionately emotional and economic impact. We saw that as recently as last month with the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabian airports,” said analyst Andrew Charlton, who runs research group Aviation Advocacy. Making “a bomb threat, or seemingly in this case, a co-ordinated series of threats, is even more cost-effective”, he added. “Flights are delayed, airports closed, operations disrupted, costs increased and passenger confidence rocked.” The threat to the Murcia flight was contained in an email sent to Ryanair, according to a Spanish government official in the country’s south.
Source: Financial Times Companies · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing