European airlines and airports face hoax bomb threats for second time this week

European carriers faced another series of alleged bomb threats within a week, prompting extensive security checks. Noble said passengers stayed on the aircraft for two and a half hours while police and military staff conducted examinations, including sniffer‑dog searches. After the inspections, travellers were informed they would be transferred to an airport in Paris and then fly onward to Rome.

Philip Baum, professor of aviation security at the University of Coventry, noted that the sector "faces multiple bomb threats every single day" but admitted he was "surprised" by the recent spate of incidents. He added that a flight is diverted "only when the threat is credible and the authorities believe there is a potential of explosive device on board". Marco Chan, an aviation expert at Kingston University, told the BBC the alerts were "most likely a hoax, but the system is right to treat it as real" and suggested they could form "a pattern of cheap, deniable disruption" to air travel. He warned that "three days of incidents is too small a sample to separate coordination from contagion".

Two days earlier, seven European flights – including two departing from the United Kingdom – were inspected after bomb warnings, yet no explosives were discovered. On Monday, a Wizz Air service from London Luton to Sofia was escorted by a Hungarian fighter jet to Budapest following a mid‑air bomb threat.