Swedish Climate Activists Stage Protests Against Airline Industry

Stockholm (dpa) - Climate activists have staged several separate protests in different parts of Sweden in the last 24 hours.

Two men were arrested on a Swedish domestic flight, while about 10 other activists demonstrated at Gothenburg Landvetter Airport in the west of the country, police said on Tuesday.

The two men, aged 65 and 40, refused to sit down when the plane operated by Scandinavian airline SAS started to leave the gate. Police were summoned and removed them, police spokesman Christer Fuxborg said.

The two men were later released, and face a fine over violating air traffic regulations, he said.

About 10 other activists held a protest in the arrivals hall but left the building when police ordered them to.

The protest was claimed by the group Extinction Rebellion that has staged similar protests in other parts of Europe.

They said on Twitter they opposed that "taxpayers’ money [was] being used to bail out the airline industry." The sector has been left reeling by the travel bans put in place to control the coronavirus pandemic.

On Tuesday a domestic flight from the Baltic Sea island of Gotland was also delayed after a climate activist was denied boarding, Swedish Radio reported.

Several protesters late Monday ran onto the runway at a smaller regional airport in Angelholm, southern Sweden, delaying a flight. One glued herself to the plane.

On Tuesday, Scandinavian airline SAS said it had secured new funding from its main shareholders, including the Swedish and Danish governments, to help it ride out the current financial troubles.

———

Visit Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany) at www.dpa.de/English.82.0.html

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.