Chaotic day for air traffic after airspace closed

The airspace over southern Norway was closed for around three hours on Thursday morning. This caused major delays and many adjustments to air traffic for the rest of the day.

At Oslo Airport, the last plane took off before the shutdown at 6 am on Thursday morning, according to Avinor’s overview.

NTB spoke shortly after 6.30 with a passenger on a plane that was supposed to travel from Gardermoen to Zurich, but where the pilot stated that air traffic control was down over the whole of southern Norway and that the entire system was paralysed.

While they waited for further information, coffee and food were served in the cabin. An hour and a half after the scheduled departure, the passengers were told that the flight to Switzerland had been canceled and that they had to leave the plane.

At the same time, Norwegian informed TV 2 that they had been told that the airspace would be closed until 11 o’clock.

All flights affected

On Thursday morning, Norwegian could confirm that all their flights to and from Oslo Airport were affected.

– We expect there to be delays throughout the day, and there may be cancellations, senior communications advisor Eline Hyggen Skari at Norwegian told NTB just after 10 o’clock.

The airline was working to rebook passengers whose flights were canceled as a result of the technical error. Passengers could also request a refund if they preferred it.

– We are working to get the customers off the ground, said Skari.

Not hacking

The reason why the airspace had to close was for some time unknown, but Avinor was able to state during Thursday that it was not due to a data breach.

– There has been a technical error, says Avinor’s communications manager, Cathrine Fremholdt.

She further explained that the technical error was due to two systems not talking to each other as they should.

The National Security Agency (NSM) informed NTB earlier on Thursday morning that they had not received any information linking them to what happened over the airspace in southern Norway.

Fremholdt stresses that there has never been a danger to safety.

– People do not need to worry about safety, it has always been safe to fly in Norway, she says.

– Now the airspace is open again

Air traffic is now underway in southern Norway, but there are still settings and delays.

– Now the airspace is open again, but it is still affected, says Fremholdt.

In Oslo, many of the same challenges continue.

– There are, of course, more planes going in and out of Oslo, so the problems persist there.

Morholdt encourages everyone who is going to travel to contact the airline they have booked tickets with. They are the ones who inform the travelers about their flights.