Munich Airport Back on Track After Security Breach the Previous Day

Aug. 29, 2019
A passenger used an emergency exit to evade a security checkpoint, causing terminals to be cleared and hundreds of flights to be cancelled.

Munich (dpa) - Business was back to usual at Munich Airport on Wednesday, one day after chaos ensued when a passenger used an emergency exit to evade a security checkpoint, causing terminals to be cleared and hundreds of flights to be cancelled.

A spokesman for Germany's second-busiest airport said there had been "no cancellations" since 5 am (0300 GMT) and that everything was once again "working as planned." There were also no more delays.

On Tuesday, all of Terminal 2 and portions of Terminal 1 were cleared by police as they conducted a search for the Spanish man who was supposed to be re-screened before continuing on to Madrid after his flight from Bangkok.

After two hours, he was eventually found and taken into custody. Police did not find he had had any malicious intent.

The incident caused 200 flights out of the planned 1,200 to be cancelled. The most-affected airline was Lufthansa, which saw 140 of its flights cancelled, affecting 14,000 passengers, spokespeople for the airline said Tuesday.

Around 1,000 Lufthansa passengers were accommodated in hotels for the night. All of those passengers were able to fly in the morning.

Lufthansa and Munich Airport are looking into whether they want to press for compensation. German police said Tuesday that they would not press charges, seeing as the man had not intended to cause harm.

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