Air traffic at the Bucharest airports is seriously affected by the large amounts of snow, after several aircraft were stuck on the ground. Aircraft cannot leave their parking positions due to the slush formed by snow removal operations.
Airplanes stuck on the ground due to snow PHOTO: Archive
Flight status can be checked HERE
“What is happening at Otopeni and Băneasa. From the information gathered from people who work at the two airports in the capital, planes are stuck in parking positions due to the slush resulting from cleaning the runways“, states BoardingPass in a post on Facebook.
Concretely, the snow collected following the clearance of the runways and taxiways was deposited near the parking positions, which makes it difficult to access the equipment necessary to prepare the aircraft for take-off.
“That snow has to be moved to clear parking positions and allow flight ground handling equipment, fuel tankers and de-icing vehicles to reach aircraft to prepare them for flight.” the cited source also shows.
Ongoing interventions
Currently, the Bucharest National Airport Company “working on freeing up more parking positions and continuing to maintain reduced snow cover on runways and taxiways”according to published information.
Problems on the ground have a knock-on effect on air traffic. Due to the large number of parked aircraft, dozens of aircraft on the ground, including landings, are affected, as there are no more free parking positions for new arrivals.
Country under severe weather warnings
The problems at the airports come amid an episode of extreme winter affecting almost the entire country. The white rush sweeps Romania: 21 counties and the Capital have been hit by severe snow, and until tomorrow morning at 10:00, most of the country remains under a weather warning.
Bucharest and Ilfov County are under Code Orange until 16:00, with the snow cover already exceeding 50 centimeters in some areas. The blizzard wreaked havoc in more than 100 localities, and road and rail traffic is almost paralyzed in the southern half of the country.
In this context, the authorities are continuing interventions to remove snow and to limit the effects of heavy snowfall, but the situation remains difficult in many regions.
