Germany: Munich Airport suspends flights amid heavy snowfall

Heavy snowfall hit southern Germany on Friday night and continued on Saturday, causing major disruptions at Munich Airport, the second-busiest hub in the country. 

The airport said on Saturday it was suspending flights until 6 a.m. on Sunday.

Around 320 of the 760 flights scheduled for Saturday have been canceled, the German DPA news agency reported. Crews were scrambling to keep a minimum of one runway in service and free of snow.

Germany's DWD weather service forecasted prolonged snow through Saturday afternoon for much of Bavaria, with as much as 30-40 centimeters (roughly 12-15 inches) of snow expected in places, "a large portion of that within a period of 12 hours overnight into Saturday." 

The airport was expecting further delays as a result, the spokesman said.

Rail and public transport also hampered 

Trains to and from Munich's Central Station were cancelled, and services in southern Germany were expected to remain severely disrupted until Monday.

"The main Munich station cannot be served," German rail operator Deutsche Bahn said.

 

Some long-distance trains including to Salzburg and Innsbruck in Austria were halted.

Most local bus and tram services were canceled since Friday evening and through Saturday in Munich as the road conditions worsened. 

The city's fire service shared pictures on social media earlier in the day of firefighters fitting a fire truck with snow chains "so that we can come to you as safely as possible at any time." 

 

Football journalist Archie Rhind-Tutt, who had spent the week on assignment in Helsinki, Finland, noted his surprise on returning to yet more wintery weather in Munich to cover a scheduled Bundesliga game.

The home game between Bayern Munich and Union Berlin was later canceled due to the heavy snowfall, Union Berlin announced.

Comparable weather was reported in nearby Bavarian cities like Augsburg. 

Early start for the snow, Zugspitze ski slopes already open

Friday's heavy snow capped a week full of indications of a comparatively early start by recent standards for cold, wintery weather across Germany. 

The ski slopes on Germany's highest mountain, the Zugspitze, on the border to Austria in the Bavarian Alps, opened on Friday, the earliest start for the German ski season in years amid warmer recent winters. 

A spokeswoman for the slope said the roughly 2 meters of snow was the most present on the mountain at the start of the ski season since 2007.

Authorities on Friday reported dozens of overnight road traffic accidents in slippery conditions across southern Germany, including one mass collision on a highway in the southwest with seven injuries, four of them severe. 

Snow also fell in Berlin midweek, while most of the country either recorded some light snowfall or at least freezing temperatures. 

msh/sms (Reuters, dpa)

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