EU Commissioner addresses bomb hoax campaign at Mullingar summit

At a press conference in Mullingar it was stated that European authorities have no information yet if the campaign of hoax bomb alerts is a cyber attack a senior European political representative has told the media.

At least 14 European flights, including an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin this morning, were the target of false bomb warnings for the third day this week. In the last week more than 20 hoaxes have been reported, with Irish carrier Ryanair the target of at least seven.

Speaking at an informal tourism ministers’ summit taking place at the Bloomfield house hotel in Mullingar the Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, said “any threats against civilians are unacceptable”.

The Greek politician has served as the European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism since 2024: “Allow me to address a very important issue concerning the bomb threats that are affecting European aviation yesterday and today,” the Commissioner said at the summit press conference, “I understand that even a plane departing from Dublin, from your national airline, was involved and has landed in France instead of Rome, in order to make sure that this threat has no ground. Just as it happened with the other 10 flights, where after inspection of the aircrafts, no bombs were found on board.”

The bomb alerts targeted carriers and flights across the continent. Today three flights were diverted, however when the jets landed no explosives were found.

Commissioner Tzitzikostas spoke of the implications of the campaign: “Ensuring the safety and security of citizens remains for the Commission a top priority. The Commission is closely monitoring the situation and we are in constant contact with the affected member states, all relevant key actors, and of course, I've been talking with EASA, I talked with them 15 minutes ago about the recent event, and we are discussing about any potential aviation safety implications on that matter.”

The Aer Lingus Flight EI402 that left Dublin Airport at 6.24am this morning, travelling to Rome Fiumicino Airport, was the one of today's flights affected by the campaign. In recent day they have forced the brief closure of a Warsaw airport and the scrambling of air force planes in Rome.

“Responsibility for assessing security threats, investigating incidents, and implementing appropriate aviation security measures rests primarily with the relevant national authorities, in cooperation of course with airport operators, with airlines, and with law enforcement authorities,” the Comissioner told the press conference, “It's too early now to draw conclusions on whether the reported incidents are linked. The national investigations remain ongoing and the EU level information sharing mechanism has been activated related to aviation security.”

Commissioner Tzitzikostas concluded by saying authorities will pursue every possibility to identify the source of the hoaxes: “Everything is an avenue of investigation. Everything is possible. We are investigating and the investigation is ongoing by the national authorities.”