Thousands stranded across Europe due to airspace disruption

Thousands of passengers are stranded across Europe after a communications outage forced Greece to close its airspace, causing widespread cancellations and delays.

Authorities are working to understand why radio communications were interrupted Sunday morning, leading to the temporary suspension of arrivals and departures.

Some departures have since been allowed to resume – although incoming flights are still being asked to divert or return to their point of origin. Athens’ main airport is among the worst affected, while Thessaloniki airport has been completely closed.

The timing of the disruptions has led to fears that travelers may not be able to return home before the start of the work week.

“I had to fly to London, via Stockholm, with SAS,” a passenger at Athens International Airport told Greek broadcaster Mega TV. “I’m working at Newport Hospital tomorrow morning. I won’t be there in time, I don’t know what else to say.

“Who will pay the extra cost that this trip will cost me? We still don’t know if and when we are going to leave, no one tells us anything.”

More than 90 flights were affected to and from Athens airport alone, although some flights have since been able to resume.

An airport staff member told the BBC that 35 planes per hour were now allowed to take off, but it was still unable to accept arriving flights.

Flights from Dublin, Barcelona and Paris have already been ordered to return to their original airports, while flights from Copenhagen and Malta have been canceled completely.

Other arrivals in Athens were put on hold, while flights to and from other Greek airports were also affected. Three flights departing from Heraklion airport on the island of Crete, including one to Munich, were delayed, according to public broadcaster ERT.

Most incoming flights are diverted to Turkey or even canceled, the report said.

The disruption comes at a time when air travel to and from Athens is busy, with typically more than 600 scheduled flights per day, returning from the winter holidays.

In the chaos, some passengers complain about the lack of information.

One told the Flash news site: “We don’t have any updates. They told us we might be leaving but I don’t think that’s true. On the departures board I don’t see my flight and I’m supposed to leave shortly.”

Another, who was on a flight to Rhodes when he turned around and returned to Athens, told the Reuters news agency: “From that moment until now we have no information.”

Domestic travelers could have the option of returning home via the Greek rail network, but this would take much longer.

The problem causing the disruption is believed to involve the radio system used by air traffic controllers to communicate with planes in their airspace.

Panagiotis Psarros, president of the Association of Greek Air Traffic Controllers, told ERT that all frequencies were “suddenly lost”, adding: “We could not communicate with the planes in the sky.”

The channel later reported that an initial investigation by Greek security services suggested the problem could be due to the failure of an antenna in the Gerania mountains near Athens.

Italy, Turkey and Cyprus are helping Greece manage the situation.