Central Europe is grappling with a second consecutive day of transportation turmoil, with continued disruption of both air and rail services due to snowstorms and heavy winds that are plaguing parts of the Continent. In particular, southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic are suffering the most severe travel disruptions this weekend.
At Munich Airport, all air traffic was halted on Saturday and only resumed Sunday morning, although operations are still severely restricted and flight schedules greatly reduced. “It is not yet possible to predict how the situation will develop in the coming days,” the airport said on its website.
According to flight tracking website FlightAware, more than half (59 percent) of the overall schedule at Munich Airport was canceled on Sunday, while 22 percent of flights were delayed. At The Netherlands’ Amsterdam Schiphol, one of Europe’s busiest airports, 25 percent of flights were cancelled, while a further 61 percent were delayed, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.
Train traveling in the Harz mountains during winter at Schierke, Germany. (Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/Fokke Baarssen)
Meanwhile, trains to and from Munich were running Sunday on a limited basis only, after operations had been halted entirely on Saturday. German press agency dpa reported that some passengers in Munich and the nearby city of Ulm were forced to spend Friday night aboard trains, due to the shutdown. The local transit authority told AP News that some regional trains and subways had also been impacted by weather issues, and no trams or buses were operating on Saturday.
Germany’s national rail operator, Deutsche Bahn, told Bloomberg that rail travel may be affected through Monday. “Even after the resumption of operations on the affected routes, only a very limited train service is likely to be possible,” the company said.
At other major airports in the region, the percentage of flight delays on Sunday was fairly high, but cancellation rates remained low. In Berlin, five percent were canceled and 56 percent delayed; in Frankfurt, Germany’s busiest hub, three percent were cancelled and 74 percent delayed; and the Swiss financial capital of Zurich, four percent were canceled and 72 percent delayed.
Closeup on tires of a car driving in a snowstorm. (photo via iStock/Getty Images Plus/LeManna)
In Austria and Switzerland, Saturday’s snowfall prompted officials to issue alerts about the risk of avalanches. In western Austria, the provinces of Tyrol and Vorarlberg elevated their avalanche alerts to the second-highest level after receiving up to 20 inches of snow overnight. On Saturday afternoon, Austrian railway company OeBB said that various stretches of its routes were shut down throughout the country due to the extreme winter weather.
In the Czech Republic, a major highway and various other roads were at a standstill for hours on Saturday, train services and public transportation were beleaguered with cancellations and delays and more than 15,000 households found themselves without power.
In the southern region, several high-speed and regional train routes were also brought to a halt this weekend, with cross-border rail operations suspended, shutting down trains that travel between the Czech Republic and neighboring Austria and Germany.
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