Heat thwarts travelers' plans at Hanover airport | TIME ONLINE



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Hannover (dpa) – Among the thousands of stranded passengers, passengers headed for Amsterdam can breathe first: At 6:31, their machine takes off at Airport Hannover.

The airport of Lower Saxony was completely closed for a dozen hours because of the damage caused by heat on a runway. 41 starts and 44 landings are affected. According to the airport, 28 are completely canceled, others start or land in other airports. Although many passengers are angry, the big mess is over.

The evening of Tuesday night is first of all a conjecture. In front of the display boards of Terminal B is a young pilot. He wonders if the machine that he should start on Wednesday morning from the Hanover airport actually takes off. "The arrival flight was diverted to Paderborn before," he says to his companion. A feeling of insecurity is also felt by many travelers. Unsuspecting and full of anticipation, they came to their holiday destination in Turkey, Egypt, Spain or Greece to begin with. But the heat destroys their plans.

At current high temperatures, three north runway plates were broken in the middle, according to a spokesman for the airport. The road should be repaired at night, it was said in the evening. The plane could not start or land on the southern runway because it was closed for renovations. A few hours later, the all-clear comes. At 6 o'clock, the first plane landed again. The check-in counter is already open from 03:00.

Stranded travelers are especially interested Tuesday night when they can take the next machine to their holiday destination. The airline told him that there would be no flight available for Turkey on Wednesday, says Michael Scheller. It is at the earliest possible Thursday. Despite the frustration of the holidays, he understands the decision of the airport: "On the other hand, it is reasonable that the runway be broken, so react," says the Soest District traveler, who wanted fly to Hurghada with his wife and daughter.

The airport site said in the evening: "Please, do NOT travel to the airport at the moment." Passengers stranded there should go home if possible, according to the speaker announcements at the airport. At night, the Johanniter has set up 200 camp beds. "We are not prepared for such a thing – on the scale," says the director of the Hannover Airport Terminal. Normally, fewer people need to be cured during the night, for example when a flight fails. In addition to the beds, there were also blankets, drinks and snacks.

After the excitement of the early hours, airline ticket lines shorten before midnight. People play cards together, drink coffee, call or just wait.

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