Munich airport: around 500 passengers were stuck in standing airplanes overnight

Thats pretty horrible. Those poor folk with very long flights to Singapore especially.

Wow ! Not a fun night !

Was not able to translate or view article but OMG ........

Just like the American tourists currently stranded in Mexico amid Cartel Violence.

I hope the passengers in the stuck planes continued to be fed and the toilets continued to be cleaned. Hope the passengers were able to walk around plane and that entertainment was provided.

due to the snow

How much snow? Munich isn’t Miami, hard to believe they can’t handle expected winter weather.

Actually appears to be an airport management issue, not a weather issue. At least they reopened the airport and recalled staff sent home to resolve the issue sometime early AM.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/500-passengers-forced-spend-night-110607897.html

Agree to toby's post. In Northern Germany we have the saying "Fisch stinkt vom Kopf her" (Fish stinks from the head first) which is sometimes also used and valid for organizations as well. Maybe also in this case?

Not only Munich, whole Germany needs to be and is prepared for such weather conditions. Frankfurt Airport for example has a workforce of 800 people (most on demand) and 120 vehicles available to fight against ice and snow.

What I agree on is that this region as well as parts of Austria were affected by very heavy snowfalls. See also DW article on this topic which shows also a picture from Vienna airport.

The management could also ask for external help from surrounding fire, rescue or technical departments which are in most cases well equipped and staffed in this region. I guess it is a question of days or weeks until someone has to take the responsibility for this and must leave the company.

Those poor folk with very long flights to Singapore especially.

Those folks were probably better off than the short haul flights. Most likely on a twin aisle jet provisioned and designed for long hours in flight. The folks on the short distance flights were the ones one planes not planned for 'a long' time on board.

Hard to believe there wasn't a plow available to lead a stairway truck out to the planes and keep a path plowed for a bus to run to between the terminal and planes.

Had this happened in the US, suspect someone on at least one of the planes would have popped open an emergency exit and slid off.

I'm wondering if the bureaucracy just locked up over their Systems not being able to handle it and Security uncertainties.

With the new automated systems, can they really just tell it "these people left but didn't really, and now we want to check them in and then check them right out" when they leave on flights.

Given that the automated systems are fairly new I'm not sure they could handle that. And no one was willing to step up and "wing it". Given the Security issues and other questions.

Probably not.

That would not be fun at all and seems pretty ridiculous, actually. However it does make me feel better about my extra hour on the plane upon arrival in Munich back in October, when some system failure meant that the aircraft couldn’t communicate with the airport to say “we’ve arrived but where do we go”. So we sat on the ground,with the cockpit apparently unable to communicate with anyone.

So we sat on the ground,with the cockpit apparently unable to communicate with anyone.

The pilot didn't have a phone number to contact the tower or someone at the airline office at the airport?

Joe, I can’t begin to explain because it seemed a bit ludicrous. But there was a computer malfunction at the airport that apparently impacted the ability of ground crews (no idea who) to hear anything from the plane. I’m just glad we landed….