Climate protection activists caused significant disruptions at Munich Airport at the start of the Whitsun holidays. The activists entered the airport premises early on Saturday morning and stuck themselves to taxiways next to the runways. According to spokespersons for the airport and the federal police, the airport was initially completely closed for security reasons. After about two hours, one of the two runways was able to go into operation, followed by the second runway about an hour later.
The airport spokesman said that it could take a while until traffic returns to normal on Saturday. “We have planned a total of almost 1,000 take-offs and landings.” Due to the tight timing of flights, there are still delays for a while in such cases. Passengers who had booked a flight for Saturday should definitely contact their airline.
The so-called last generation announced on Network Numerous police officers and firefighters were on site to remove the activists.
The federal police spokesman said that initially eight people wanted to get onto the site at four different points at the same time. The men and women cut through the airport security fence. Two of the activists could have been arrested in the area of the fence, the others got further inside.
As the airport spokesman explained, only planned landings in Munich from 5 a.m. were initially affected because take-offs were only allowed to take place from 6 a.m. In the first hour of operation, eight aircraft were diverted to other airports.
Munich Airport had expected a large number of holidaymakers on the first holiday weekend, with a total of around 350,000 passengers announced from Friday to Sunday. Munich Airport wanted to handle 2,860 flights during this period. Overall, seven percent more flights were registered for the Whitsun holidays, the second major travel wave of the year after Easter, than in the previous year, the airport reported before the start of the holidays.
According to their own statements, members of the Last Generation had planned to get onto the airport premises in order to block at least one of the two runways. They wanted to disrupt the beginning of travel at the start of the Whitsun holidays.
The background to the protest is that air traffic accounts for almost ten percent of Germany’s responsibility for global warming. The airline industry is being subsidized by the state by waiving kerosene and VAT, the activists criticized. They are calling for more decisive political action in the face of climate change.
In the past, the group had carried out similar actions at several German airports, such as Berlin, Hamburg and Düsseldorf. In Munich there was already a blockade at the airport in December 2022. At that time, according to authorities, a plane that had an emergency patient on board was only able to land at the airport in the Bavarian capital with a 20-minute delay.