Passengers had to wait overnight in several Lufthansa aircraft at Munich Airport.
Symbolbild: dpa
It snowed and snowed: this had far-reaching consequences for hundreds of travelers at Munich Airport on Friday night.
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- Heavy snowfall slowed down operations at Munich Airport on Friday.
- Around 500 passengers had to spend an involuntary night in airplanes.
- Due to a lack of buses and parking facilities, travelers were unable to return to the terminal.
Around 500 passengers involuntarily spent a night in airplanes at Munich Airport in the middle of winter. Their flights scheduled for Thursday evening were canceled after heavy snowfall on Friday night – after all passengers were already on board and the planes were ready for take-off, according to a Lufthansa spokesperson.
According to Munich Airport, travelers were unable to return to the terminal due to a lack of buses and parking facilities – and were forced to wait in the planes. RTL.de had previously reported on this.
According to the airport, the snowfall caused delays and cancellations throughout the day on Thursday. 100 flights were canceled. In the evening, some flights had received special permission to take off after 1.00 a.m. – a night flight ban normally applies in Munich. Due to the snow, however, flights that had already been dispatched and were ready to take off were not given permission to take off after all, a Lufthansa spokesperson reported.
Passengers would not have been able to return to the terminal: “At this point, all parking spaces for aircraft directly at the terminal were already occupied and bus capacity on the aprons was limited,” the airport said.
Passengers remain on planes until the morning
Passengers and crews were unable to leave the aircraft and had to spend the night in the aircraft on the apron. According to Lufthansa, in addition to three Lufthansa flights to Singapore, Copenhagen and Gdansk, two Air Dolomiti flights to Graz and Venice were also affected. According to the Lufthansa spokesperson, buses did not pick up passengers again until early in the morning.
The Lufthansa spokesperson was unable to say why there were no buses available to take passengers to the terminal. The airport was responsible for organizing the buses.
He could not initially be reached for further questions about the incident on Sunday. “We very much regret the inconvenience this has caused,” a spokesperson for Munich Airport simply said.
