Kamal Ghorui
Around 500 passengers had to spend an entire night inside their grounded planes at Munich Airport as all the staff had gone home because of the heavy snowstorm and the airport had already been closed. According to German newspaper Bild, 123 passengers were due to fly from Munich to Copenhagen, Denmark, on Thursday, February 19, with airline Lufthansa, but they ended up being stuck on the plane for eight hours. The other passengers were on other Lufthansa planes and two Air Dolomiti flights scheduled to flight to Austria and Italy. Lufthansa reported that they had 500 passengers affected. The actual number of passengers stranded inside plane is likely to be higher because of the other planes. The Copenhagen-bound flight was scheduled to depart at 9.30 pm local time but the departure was repeatedly delayed because of the snow. Just before midnight, the flight was canceled. At that time, the plane was parked at a remote stand and there were no buses to take passengers back to the terminal.
Sudden announcement: Airport is closed
The passengers recounted that they were assured every 30 minutes that buses were trying to be organized for them. But at 2 am, there was a sudden announcement that the airport had closed and the airline staff could no longer get hold of anyone inside the airport. The airport was closed because of a night flight in Munich from 12 am to 5 am. Since there was no chance of any other flight landing or taking off, the passengers asked if they could just get down from their plane and go inside the airport but they were not allowed and they kept waiting inside the plane along with the airline staff too. As the flight was only meant to be 90 minutes long, there was not adequate provision for food or drinks. “Flights can be canceled at any time, but leaving people on the plane indefinitely is unacceptable,” a passenger told Bild. Lufthansa told Ekstra Bladet in a statement, “Due to the weather conditions on February 19th with heavy snowfall at Munich Airport, there were temporary runway closures and massive delays in de-icing procedures. As a result, there were delays and cancellations yesterday. The passengers have since been rebooked onto the next available flight.”
