Switzerland was hit by severe thunderstorms on Monday evening. The Bernese Oberland and the Canton of Uri were hit particularly hard. The storm also hit Zurich Airport. In the meantime, no other planes could take off.
The suspension of treatment is due to safety reasons. Airport employees are not allowed to remain outside during severe thunderstorms. The Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology has recorded over 70,000 lightning strikes during thunderstorms throughout Switzerland.
Still “Zurich Lower Lands” writes: At 20:54 a Swiss flight took off for Amsterdam, but from then on nothing worked. A Eurowings A320 left the runway at around 21:15 and returned to the gate. Several other planes followed, taxiing to the gate or to a stand.
20 flights diverted
Initially, landings were still possible. However, diversions began at 9:30 p.m. An Easyjet A320 was the first to take off. It came from Berlin and flew directly there. The Swiss from Copenhagen, for example, flew to Basel.
Vueling from Barcelona and Helvetic from Paris flew to Stuttgart, as did Swiss from London and Berlin. Easyjet from Porto landed in Basel, as did Swiss from Brussels. Edelweiss flew from Heraklion and Rhodes to Milan.
“Due to the stormy weather with a high risk of lightning, no aircraft were able to take off or land at Zurich Airport on Monday evening. This resulted in delays, flight cancellations and diversions to surrounding airports,” airport spokeswoman Andrea Bärwalde told Travelnews.
A total of 20 flights had to be diverted or sent back to their origin airport. Six flights from Zurich were cancelled. The last plane to land yesterday was an Edelweiss plane from Rhodes at 23:50. The last take-off was at 00:08 (Switzerland departing for Sao Paulo).
Today, Tuesday, some flights had to be cancelled because there were no planes at Zurich Airport due to diversions.