Munich Airport was forced to suspend operations for almost seven hours overnight after multiple drone sightings disrupted air traffic.
The closure began shortly after 10 pm on Thursday, grounding 17 departing flights and affecting around 3,000 passengers, the airport said. Another 15 incoming flights were diverted to Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Vienna. Flight-tracking data showed several aircraft circling Munich before rerouting, reports CNN and agencies.
Services resumed at 5 a.m. on Friday after authorities deemed arrivals and departures safe. The first scheduled landing was a Lufthansa long-haul flight from Bangkok.
Lufthansa reported that 19 of its flights were either cancelled or diverted, including three long-haul services to Asia. The airline said it provided food, drinks and blankets to stranded travellers, with images showing passengers sleeping on camp beds inside the terminal.
The airport, located in Bavaria, handled nearly 20 million passengers in the first half of 2025 and is a key hub for Germany’s flag carrier Lufthansa.
The incident comes amid heightened concern over drone activity across Europe. Denmark last week imposed a temporary ban on civilian drone flights after repeated sightings near its airports during a summit of European leaders in Copenhagen. Leaders discussed building a “drone wall” – a Europe-wide detection and interception system to secure the continent’s skies.
Tensions have been further inflamed by allegations of Russian drones straying into NATO airspace and repeated violations of European skies. Moscow has dismissed such claims as Western attempts to fuel confrontation.
Munich had already been on alert earlier this week when its Oktoberfest beer festival was briefly closed following a bomb threat.
