According to British newspaper The Telegraph, European airspace experienced significant disruption and confusion on Thursday after flights travelling to Italy, Belgium, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic received bomb threats, forcing them to make emergency landings or divert to alternative airports.
According to the office of the French prime minister, an Aer Lingus flight travelling from Dublin to Rome was also diverted following a similar threat. A bomb disposal squad later inspected the aircraft and declared it safe.
Bulgaria's interior minister also confirmed that two flights arriving from Copenhagen and Madrid had been diverted to alternative airports.
Meanwhile, Czech police said four flights heading to Prague had received similar threats. A flight travelling from Milan, Italy, to Bucharest also faced the same situation.
Earlier, at least seven flights, including three British passenger aircraft, received bomb threats on Tuesday, disrupting operations at several European airports.
So far, no explosives have been reported to have been found on any of the aircraft, and no group or country has been identified as responsible for the threats.
A spokesperson for the British government described the threats as acts of malicious disruption but did not disclose further details about the incidents.
According to The Telegraph, a former officer of Britain's intelligence agency MI6 has raised concerns that Russia, or the Kremlin, could potentially be behind the suspected sabotage campaign.
Cyberattacks Target Supermarkets and Blood Bank
Alongside the bomb threats targeting passenger aircraft, a series of suspected cyberattacks have also been reported in several European countries.
According to reports, unidentified hackers disrupted refrigeration systems at supermarkets across multiple European countries this week.
Eli Ran Almog, chief executive of aviation cybersecurity company Syvation, said the repeated threats may not simply be intended to disrupt air travel but could also be aimed at testing the responses of airlines, airports and government authorities.
He noted that cyberattacks targeting supermarket refrigeration systems in Europe had also been reported during the same period.
On Monday, unidentified hackers allegedly gained control of refrigerators at dozens of supermarkets across Europe and raised their temperatures to 80 degrees Celsius, resulting in large quantities of food being spoiled.
In another incident, France's central blood bank was targeted, with hackers allegedly raising the temperature of its cold storage facilities to 110 degrees Celsius on Sunday night.
According to France's Ministry of Health, timely intervention prevented damage to blood samples stored at the facility, and no patients were affected by the incident.
