Russian airline booking system developer Leonardo seized by the state

On February 20, the Nikulinsky District Court of Moscow granted the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office and converted the property of the owners of the Sirena-Travel group of companies — the operator of the Leonardo airline booking system and the Astra airport registration system — into state revenue.

Among the seized assets are the booking system, registration services, hotels, travel companies, apartments, cottages, and land plots with a total value of over 35 billion rubles.

Leonardo is a key Russian IT system for booking and registration, used by almost all major airlines in the country and replacing foreign analogues Sabre and Amadeus in order to protect passengers' personal data and the stability of the air transport infrastructure. The development of Leonardo began in 2011 by Sirena-Travel, and since 2020 its development and maintenance have been carried out in partnership with RT-Project Technologies and Rostec.

The system has already faced serious cyber incidents and technical failures that affected air transportation. In September 2023, Leonardo was subjected to large-scale DDoS attacks, which led to difficulties in registering passengers at airports. On January 26, 2026, the system experienced a global failure, temporarily restricting the processing, registration, re-issuance, and return of airline tickets and baggage for a number of carriers, which led to delays and cancellations of flights and the transfer of a number of operations to manual mode until the system was restored.

The Rostec State Corporation emphasized that the court's decision does not affect the functioning of the booking service: the lawsuit affects a private legal entity that is not part of the corporation, and the work of the system itself is not affected in any way, the press service clarified.

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