By Guy Birchall

Multiple flights across Europe received bomb threats on Thursday, marking the second time this week air travel on the continent has been disrupted by apparent hoaxes.

None of the threats, from either Nov. 5 or Nov. 3, have so far proved to be genuine, but they have forced numerous planes to make unplanned landings or be escorted by fighter jets.

An Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Rome was forced to make an unscheduled landing at Évreux airport, 62 miles west of Paris, on Nov. 5, after being diverted as a security precaution, the Irish flag carrier said in a statement, according to the Irish Times.

“The flight landed safely and Aer Lingus will work to reaccommodate customers to their final destination as soon as possible,” the airline said.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s office said the plane landed safely, according to French publication Le Parisien, which also reported that a French Air Force aircraft escorted the Aer Lingus flight to Évreux and that bomb disposal teams attended the scene after it landed.

In Bulgaria, three planes operated by Irish budget airline Ryanair were forced to make emergency landings across the country on Nov. 5 after receiving similar threats.

Flights from Copenhagen and Madrid landed safely in the capital, Sofia, while a third from London was diverted to Plovdiv, the Balkan country’s second-largest city, the Bulgarian Ministry of Transport said, according to the state-backed Bulgarian News Agency (BTA).

MiG-29 fighters escorted all three planes to their landings, the Bulgarian Air Force said in a statement released via BTA.

The Epoch Times contacted Ryanair for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

The same day, Czech police said in a post on X that four planes bound for Prague had received bomb threats, with authorities making preparations for their landings, although they assessed the credibility of the threats as “low.”

“Nevertheless, we do not underestimate the threat, which is why all necessary security measures have been activated with the least possible impact on passengers and airport operations,” the police added in a separate post on X, saying that “pyrotechnic inspections will be conducted on all aircraft” after they land.

A third post on the same platform, posted about two hours later, announced that security measures had ended at Prague airport, with inspections finding no explosives.

Finnish carrier Finnair also said two of its flights from Helsinki received bomb threats: one bound for Rome and the other, operated by Danish charter airline Jettime, headed to Vienna, Finnish outlet Yle reported.

Finnair’s communications manager told Yle that both instances were found to be hoaxes.

A pair of LOT Polish Airlines planes were also victims of bomb threats, with one being stopped as it taxied down the runway at Warsaw-Chopin Airport as it prepared to take off.

Passengers on the Paris-bound flight were forced to disembark and transfer to another aircraft as a precaution, and the airport closed one runway while the plane was inspected, according to Polish outlet WNP.

A spokesman for Polish Airports later said that no threats were detected during the inspection, WNP reported, citing the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

A second LOT flight from Warsaw to Brussels landed safely in the Belgian capital after receiving a similar security alert, with no suspicious items found in that instance either, The Brussels Times reported.

Hungarian budget carrier Wizz Air also confirmed that one of its flights from Milan to Warsaw was forced to land in Vienna after receiving a bomb threat while in the air, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

No suspicious items were found after authorities inspected the plane following its unscheduled arrival in the Austrian capital, according to the Viennese daily newspaper Kurier.

The Epoch Times contacted Wizz Air, LOT Polish Airlines, Finnair, Ryanair, and Aer Lingus for comment but received no response by publication time.

No information has been revealed about who is behind the threats or whether they are connected.

Thursday’s spate of bomb threats also came three days after several supermarket chains across Europe reported technical issues with their refrigerator systems, including rising temperatures, with companies blaming potential cyberattacks.

Incidents were reported in Belgium, Ireland, and Sweden, among other countries, on Nov. 2, following similar attacks that took place across France last month.