About 500 passengers had to spend the entire night inside their parked planes at Munich Airport, as all employees had gone home due to the severe snowstorm and the airport was already closed.
According to the German newspaper Bild, 123 passengers were scheduled to travel from Munich to Copenhagen, Denmark, on Thursday, February 19, on board the airline Lufthansa, but they ended up remaining stuck on the plane for eight hours. The other passengers were on other Lufthansa planes and two Dolomiti Airlines flights scheduled to travel to Austria and Italy. Lufthansa reported that 500 passengers were affected. The actual number of passengers stranded inside the plane is likely higher due to other planes. The flight to Copenhagen was scheduled to depart at 9.30pm local time, but the departure was repeatedly delayed due to snow. Shortly before midnight, the flight was cancelled. At that time, the plane was parked at a remote stand and there were no buses to take passengers to the terminal.
Sudden announcement: The airport is closed
Passengers recounted that they were assured every 30 minutes that buses were trying to organize for them. But at 2 a.m., there was a sudden announcement that the airport was closed and the airline staff could no longer catch anyone inside the airport.
The airport is closed due to a night flight in Munich from 12pm to 5am. Since there was no chance of any other flight landing or taking off, the passengers asked if they could get off their plane and enter the airport but they were not allowed to do so and kept waiting inside the plane with the company staff as well. Since the flight was only supposed to be 90 minutes long, there wasn’t enough food or drinks.
“Flights can be canceled at any time, but leaving people on board indefinitely is unacceptable,” one passenger told Bild newspaper. “Due to weather conditions on February 19 with heavy snowfall at Munich Airport, there was a temporary runway closure and a significant delay in de-icing procedures. As a result, there were delays and cancellations yesterday. Passengers have since been rebooked on the next available flight,” Lufthansa told Ekstra Bladet in a statement.
