Suspected cyberattack causes travel chaos at Seattle Airport

The Port of Seattle was hit by a suspected cyberattack that caused significant disruption to airport and shipping traffic in the city in the run-up to Labor Day.

The ongoing IT outage that began on August 24 has caused significant delays in the check-in process at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) as Wi-Fi is currently unavailable and display screens are not functioning.

In addition, certain airport programs and services, such as the SEA Visitor Pass and the airport Lost and Found, are currently unavailable.

To speed up the check-in process, passengers are advised to collect their mobile boarding pass and check their baggage before arriving at the airport.

The port said there were “indications” that the outages were caused by a cyberattack.

Frontier, Spirit, Sun Country, JetBlue and International Airlines are particularly affected.

The Port of Seattle website is currently unavailable and baggage and flight information cannot be accessed via the SEA apps.

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As a result of the system outage, the telephone systems of the Port of Seattle’s maritime facilities also failed, but cruise ship traffic is running as usual.

The incident will impact travel early on Labor Day, as the U.S. holiday falls on September 2.

In a press conference on August 26, Greg Hawko, the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) federal security director for Washington, stressed that traveler safety had not been compromised by the incident. The SEA continues to effectively screen and screen passengers and baggage.

Critical systems isolated, no estimated recovery time

The local government agency first reported “an outage of the internet and web systems” at 9:45 a.m. PDT on August 24.

Shortly thereafter, at 1:30 p.m. PDT, the port announced that the outages of certain systems indicated a possible cyber attack and that critical systems had been isolated.

In the August 26 update, the Port of Seattle said it is currently working to restore full operations to the SEA, but there is currently no estimated time for resumption.