Their flights planned for Thursday evening were canceled after heavy snowfall on Friday night – after all passengers were on board and the planes were ready to take off, as a Lufthansa spokesman announced.

Munich: Snowfall causes delays and cancellations

According to the airport, the snowfall caused delays and cancellations throughout the day on Thursday. 100 flights were canceled. In the evening, some flights received special permits to be able to take off after 1 a.m. – there is normally a ban on night flights in Munich. Because of the snow, flights that had already been processed and ready to take off were not given permission to take off, a Lufthansa spokesman reported.

However, the passengers could no longer return to the terminal: “At this point, all parking spaces for aircraft directly at the terminal were already occupied and bus capacities on the aprons were limited,” the airport said.

Passengers wait on planes until morning

Passengers and crews were no longer able to leave the aircraft and had to spend the night in the aircraft on the apron. According to Lufthansa, the following flights were affected:

• Munich – Singapore
• Munich – Copenhagen
• Munich – Gdansk
• Munich – Graz
• Munich – Venice

According to the Lufthansa spokesman, buses that picked up the passengers only started running again in the early morning. The Lufthansa spokesman could not say why there were no buses available to take passengers to the terminal. The airport is responsible for organizing the buses.

He could not be reached on Sunday to answer further questions about the incident. “We very much regret the inconvenience this caused,” said a spokesman for Munich Airport.