Bomb threats target at least 12 more European flights

BRUSSELS — At least 15 European flights were targeted by bomb threats Thursday, following seven similar incidents earlier in the week in which authorities found no explosives.

Irish airline Aer Lingus reported that one of its flights from Dublin to Rome was diverted to an airport in France following a security threat.

The office of French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said that the plane landed safely in Évreux, northwest of Paris, and that the 157 people on board were taken to safety.

According to the BBC, two other flights were diverted Thursday following similar alerts: a Wizz Air plane from Milan to Warsaw, which was diverted to Vienna; and a Ryanair flight from London to Sofia, which was diverted to Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

Finnish carrier Finnair said that two of its aircraft — both departing from Helsinki and bound for Rome and Vienna — faced "faced unfounded or hoax bomb threats" and were subject to police checks after landing. The plane bound for Rome was also escorted by Italian fighter jets.

"Unfortunately, air traffic is sometimes subject to threats, as we have seen this week, when also other airlines in Europe have faced hoax bomb threats," said spokesperson Päivyt Tallqvist.

Another bomb threat affected a flight operated by LOT from Warsaw to Brussels Airport on Thursday morning. Airport spokesperson Ihsane Chioua Lekhli told Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad that police carried out searches and no further security measures were deemed necessary.

LOT said that another aircraft scheduled to fly from Warsaw to Paris “was stopped while taxiing and directed to a designated parking stand” before departure.

“The aircraft and all baggage underwent a security screening,” said the airline, which added that no hazardous items were found and that the flight departed with a replacement aircraft.

Italian news agency ANSA reported that two flights bound for Milan Malpensa Airport — an Aegean Airlines flight from Thessaloniki and a Ryanair flight from Porto — were also searched following bomb threats.

Two other Ryanair flights bound for Sofia — one from Copenhagen and the other from Madrid — were also reportedly targeted by bomb threats.

Czech police said on social media that four flights bound for Prague Airport were also threatened, but officers assessed “the severity of the threats as low.”

Ben Smith, CEO of Air France–KLM, said that the threats were happening "in a coordinated way."

"I don't think we've seen this before," he said during a Thursday earnings call, but added that the airline group is not making any requests of governments. "We're quite confident that we have in place what we need to ensure that it has minimal or no impact on our operations."

EU Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said: "It is too early to draw conclusions on whether the reported incidents are linked."

He added that the EU-level information sharing mechanism for aviation security has been activated. "We don’t have information yet whether this is a cyber attack," he said.

Seven passenger aircraft were searched on Monday and Tuesday by authorities in Spain, Poland, Italy and Bulgaria following bomb threats. No explosives were found, but the alerts also led to the temporary closure of Warsaw Chopin Airport.

The risk of someone successfully smuggling a bomb aboard an airplane is low, said Jan-Arwed Richter, CEO of JACDEC, an aviation-safety analysis firm.

“Today there is hardly any thinkable way to get explosives aboard a commercial flight,” he said. “The last real bombing of a flight took place on Oct. 31, 2015 on a flight from Egypt to Russia because of security loopholes and personnel shortcomings that were rectified immediately.”