Climate activists shut down Munich Airport early Saturday morning. The activists got into the inner area of the airport area by cutting the fence in four places at the same time. Flight operations slowly resumed in the morning.
“The airport is closed for security reasons because climate activists have stuck themselves on the runways,” an airport spokesman said on Saturday morning. 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. The incoming planes were diverted to other airports. Eleven planes were affected. Flight operations have now slowly started up again.
The airport was expecting numerous holidaymakers on the first holiday weekend, with a total of around 350,000 passengers expected from Friday to Sunday. Munich Airport wanted to handle 2,860 flights during this time. Overall, seven percent more flights were registered during the Whitsun holidays, the second major travel wave of the year after Easter, than in the previous year, the airport announced before the start of the holidays.
An employee of the German Press Agency was able to observe at least two people sitting on the runways. The “Last Generation” reported on Network X that a total of six people had sat in groups of two at different locations at Munich Airport. Numerous police officers were on site.
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.
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.
