The airport had to stop operations in January because of the weather.Image: APA/VIENNA AIRPORT
Heavy snowfall has caused major problems at Munich and Vienna airports. Munich Airport announced on its website that take-offs and landings could be delayed or canceled altogether.
Feb 20, 2026, 1:11 p.mFeb 20, 2026, 1:11 p.m
There had already been 100 cancellations on Thursday, and 50 flight cancellations were known by mid-morning on Friday, a spokesman said.
Vienna airport looked so snowy on Friday morning.image: screenshot webcam
Vienna Airport even temporarily suspended operations. According to the airport, at least 150 flights were canceled. The airport said that at least individual take-offs and landings could only be possible again around midday. Delays are to be expected throughout the day.
Around 20 centimeters of snow in Vienna
Around 20 centimeters of snow fell at Vienna Airport during the night. The winter service has been in operation continuously since Thursday evening, it was said. Around 1,000 truckloads with a total of around 15,000 tons of snow have been removed so far.
There were also problems on the roads in Bavaria and Austria. There were numerous accidents in Bavaria – especially in Upper Bavaria and Swabia, the emergency services were increasingly deployed, as the police headquarters announced.
In southern Upper Bavaria alone there were around 75 operations due to snowfall and slippery conditions, said a police spokesman. Accidents often resulted in sheet metal damage. A total of twelve people were slightly injured. Sometimes the drivers hit the guardrail, sometimes they ended up in the ditch. Falling snow was also a problem: several trees fell onto the streets as a result.
A serious accident occurred late on Thursday evening on the Munich motorway ring road. A father drove off the A99 near Aschheim into a parking lot, left the wintry road and crashed into a parked tractor-trailer. The car pushed under the truck’s trailer. The 51-year-old driver, his 47-year-old wife and their ten-year-old daughter were taken to hospital with serious injuries.
Avalanche pushes bus off the road
In the Austrian state of Tyrol, a bus that was supposed to take company employees to their company was hit by an avalanche and pushed off the road. None of the twelve occupants were injured, a police spokesman said.
On Thursday, a Munich driver collided with a clearing vehicle in Austria and his car fell 30 meters into steep terrain. The 52-year-old was traveling downhill with his 17-year-old daughter near Sölden on a snow-covered road, the police said. The clearing vehicle came towards him in a left-hand bend and her car collided with it. The driver was seriously injured and the daughter was slightly injured in the crash. Although snow chains are mandatory on the route when the road is covered in snow, none were fitted to the vehicle involved in the accident, it was said.
Around 30,000 households in Styria without electricity
In Styria, around 30,000 households were without electricity. According to a fault overview from the Styrian energy network, many transformer stations there had failed.
The winter weather also had an impact on railway lines. A tree fell on the tracks on the route between Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Innsbruck and damaged the overhead line. The trains from Munich therefore ended early at the train station in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
High danger of avalanches in many winter sports regions
Meanwhile, another fatal avalanche was reported in northern Italy. According to the Ansa news agency, a 54-year-old was on a ski tour at an altitude of 2,550 meters near the municipality of Saint-Nicolas in the Aosta Valley on the border with France on Thursday afternoon with a group of other Germans when the accident occurred.
The avalanche hit the group, causing two of the skiers to be buried. The group immediately alerted the mountain rescue service and began digging out the two buried victims. As Ansa also reported, one of the two was only slightly injured, the other was in a critical condition due to hypothermia. He was taken to a hospital where he later died.
Given the heavy snowfall, the danger of avalanches is currently high in many European winter sports regions. In the past few days, the authorities have repeatedly reported deaths from severe avalanches in Austria, France, Switzerland and northern Italy. In the most recent accident in the Aosta Valley, the avalanche warning level is said to have passed four out of five. (sda/dpa)
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