Munich Airport resumes flights, rail still disrupted after heavy snow

Munich Airport resumed flight operations at 6 am (0500 GMT) on Sunday morning after being closed due to heavy snowfall, the operating company announced on its website.

However, there will still be restrictions on air traffic, the company said. Passengers are asked to check the status of their flight before travelling.

Flight operations were temporarily suspended on Saturday due to the intense winter weather in the southern German state of Bavaria.

The suspension of flight operations in Munich affected departures and arrivals at other airports. Frankfurt and Nuremberg airports, for example, took on aircraft that were no longer able to fly to Munich.

The heavy snowfall paralysed large parts of southern Germany in particular - including rail traffic.

According to a spokeswoman for German rail operator Deutsche Bahn, travellers would have to expect massive restrictions on rail traffic in southern Germany until Monday. Traffic at Munich's central railway station remained at a standstill on Sunday morning. The closure was expected to last until at least 10 am (0900 GMT).

The railway wanted to get traffic moving as soon as possible. This would initially only be possible on isolated routes and with reduced services. It was not yet clear when. Control flights with helicopters along the routes should be awaited, these are dependent on daylight, said the spokeswoman.

Traffic normalized on the roads in southern Bavaria overnight. The authorities only reported minor accidents. "A few trees still fell, but there were only accidents with fender benders," a spokesman for the Upper Bavaria South police headquarters said on Sunday morning.

Accidents in Lower Bavaria were also "typical for the time of year," a spokesman said. The night was similarly quiet on the roads in northern Upper Bavaria and Swabia, police said.

Not only Bavaria was affected by the winter weather. There were also weather-related problems on the roads in some areas in northern Germany. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a car left a snow-covered road and crashed into a tree. The two occupants were seriously injured in the accident.

Further fresh snow is not forecast for large parts of Bavaria on Sunday, but in the eastern low mountain ranges and in the Alps are several centimetres of fresh snow is expected. Meteorologists are expecting lows of minus 6 to minus 9 degrees.

South of the Danube, temperatures could reach minus 10 to minus 15 degrees in some areas. It will remain cold on Monday and Tuesday, but snow is only expected to fall sporadically.

The situation will be similar in some parts of Germany in the coming days. In Lower Saxony, on the North Sea coast and between the Ore Mountains and the Harz Mountains, occasional snowfall is expected on Sunday.

On Monday, it should increasingly change to rain there. In contrast, it should remain dry from Berlin to southern Bavaria.