Munich airport reopened on Monday after being closed overnight due to drone sightings, forcing the cancellation or rerouting of dozens of flights ahead of a national holiday and raising concerns about the vulnerability of key infrastructure in Europe.
As operations resumed early this morning, a Reuters witness saw passengers checking in for a flight to Varna in Bulgaria, with the departures board showing only a few cancelled flights. According to the airport's website, the first plane to land was from Bangkok, at around 5:25 a.m.
The airport said numerous drone sightings late Thursday forced air traffic control to suspend operations, leading to the cancellation of 17 flights and disrupting travel for nearly 3.000 passengers, who were provided with rollaway beds, blankets and food.
Another 15 incoming flights were diverted to other cities, including Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Vienna and Frankfurt, the airport added.
The drones were spotted late at night above the airport, a police spokesman told the Bild newspaper. As it was dark, the size or type of the drones could not be determined, he added. Police did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
The Munich disruption is the latest in a series of similar drone incidents that have rocked European aviation and sparked wider safety concerns, after airspace violations temporarily closed airports in Denmark and Norway last week.
The incidents have sparked strong reactions from European Union (EU) leaders, who backed plans to strengthen the bloc's defenses with anti-drone measures at a summit in Copenhagen on Wednesday.
"Europe must be able to defend itself," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said after the meeting.
Authorities have not yet publicly blamed any specific actor for the Munich incident, but some European officials have suggested that Russia is behind other recent airspace violations.
"Russia is trying to test us. But Russia is also trying to sow division and unrest in our societies," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin joked on Thursday that he would no longer fly drones over Denmark, but Moscow denied responsibility for the incidents.
The disruption in Munich further heightened tensions in the city during a week in which the popular Oktoberfest was temporarily closed due to a bomb threat and a separate discovery of explosives in an apartment building in the north of the city.
Friday is German Reunification Day, a national holiday.
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