The first impression of Munich Airport late on Tuesday morning: It seems relatively quiet in Terminal 2. People are sitting on benches, luggage next to them, waiting. There is a bit of a crowd at the check-in counter. But the chaos from the weekend, when, according to the airport, between 1,000 and 1,500 people were stranded there after the airport was completely closed, appears to have cleared up.
“The terminals have emptied significantly since yesterday evening,” says press spokesman Henner Euting. On the night from Monday to Tuesday only around 200 people stayed overnight at the airport. However, it is also quiet at the airport because operations were suspended again until 12 p.m. on Tuesday morning due to a forecast of freezing rain. And even after that, only around 100 of the planned 800 flight movements should take place. So those who can didn’t even bother setting out. But not everyone has this privilege.
If you turn into the hall in front of the Lufthansa service center, the impression of normal operations is over. A very long line stretches through the entire room and back again. Everyone is waiting to find out when they can fly where, whether today or at least tomorrow.
Like Vibeke Hessen and Ole Stokkeland from Norway. They’ve been waiting to get to the counter for three and a half hours. The trip to Munich with a couple who were friends was supposed to be a surprise trip for Stokkeland’s 50th birthday, says Hansen. In fact, “everything became very surprising”.
Vibeke Hessen and Ole Stokkeland.
(Photo: Marco Einfeldt)
The outward journey on Thursday with a stopover in Amsterdam didn’t go smoothly. Instead of going to Munich, they only got to Frankfurt by plane, from there by train to Ulm, but then nothing worked anymore and they continued by taxi to Munich.
The return flight on Sunday: cancelled. The rebooking for Monday: cancelled. The one for Tuesday: canceled. The online services did not work. So they have no choice but to stand in line here. Hansen and Stokkeland are a bit surprised: In Norway, this weather is completely normal in winter and everything works.
Günther Huber and Jutta Giess are also surprised about the effects of winter weather. “As if it had never snowed,” says Huber. The couple traveled from South Tyrol in a rental car to fly from Munich to Rio de Janeiro. That was Saturday and they’ve been stuck ever since. Their flights were canceled every day. There’s no going back because of the snow: “We’re not even coming to South Tyrol,” says Giess.
Günther Huber and Jutta Giess.
(Photo: Marco Einfeldt/Marco Einfeldt)
Now they hope to get a flight to Frankfurt or Zurich, where the winter apparently causes fewer problems, and to get on from there. They stayed overnight at the Hilton at the airport. When asked whether Lufthansa organized it, Huber just laughs. “Lufthansa doesn’t do anything,” he says.
“The worst thing is that you aren’t informed,” says Stefan Schulz, who doesn’t want to use his real name for professional reasons. He’s near the end of the long line. It was only “two minutes ago” that he found out that the flight on which he and his parents, who come from the Allgäu, had been rebooked – they wanted to travel to the USA together – was not taking off either.
Mighty snaking line: The waiting line still runs through the entire hall on Tuesday.
(Photo: Marco Einfeldt)
His parents are both over 70, they need a ventilator – but it was in the luggage that they had already checked in on Monday before their first flight was canceled, and there is apparently no way to get it now. He and his parents spent the night in a hotel in Garching – they would have had to shell out more than 300 euros per room.
The extra costs caused by the flight chaos are slowly becoming too much for Viktoria Gerrer and Ronald Hayderer. The couple from Vienna sits on a bench in the waiting hall and looks a bit exhausted. It was actually supposed to be a relaxed weekend trip to Munich, they report. There on Friday, back on Sunday.
Viktoria Gerrer and Ronald Hayderer.
(Photo: Marco Einfeldt)
But the return flight on Sunday was canceled, as was the one on Monday via Hamburg to Vienna and the one scheduled for Tuesday at 11:25 a.m. Apparently they were supposed to fly at ten o’clock in the evening, says Gerrer. But she doesn’t see it coming yet: “When it’s cold again and freezes again…” Unfortunately, there are no alternatives: trains don’t run and buses are fully booked. And so they hung around at the airport again for twelve hours.
They don’t have the nerve to take a trip to Munich right now. Things were also getting tight financially after two unplanned nights in a hotel in Erding. “There is no longer any money to invest,” says Hayderer. Although they received a 15 euro voucher from Lufthansa, they could only redeem it with a valid boarding pass.
Otherwise, the emergency food support for her, like the other passengers, initially looks like this: water, Hanuta and two – from Munich’s perspective – rather thin pretzels wrapped in plastic.
Ryan Grafton and Scarlett Elias, who are sitting on the floor at the edge of the hall, also have the food package with them. The young couple from Los Angeles wanted to travel to Krakow via Munich. Instead of going to the Polish city, they went to Munich city center on Monday, looked for a hotel and visited the Christmas market.
Ryan Grafton and Scarlett Elias.
(Photo: Marco Einfeldt)
Today they would look for a hotel near the airport, says Grafton – because their flight should now leave at seven o’clock on Wednesday morning. The two of them travel with lighter luggage than planned: Elias’ suitcase was lost in the snow chaos.
The airport does not know how many passengers are currently waiting in Munich to continue their journey. Lufthansa probably already knows this about its passengers, but spokeswoman Bettina Rittberger refers to “internal information”. According to her, all passengers will be booked on the “next possible flight”, but that will usually only be Wednesday as flight operations are still restricted.
At the airport it is expected that the worst is now over. However, there could still be cancellations on Wednesday. The exact flight plan is still being drawn up.