Over 30 departures were cancelled or redirected and nearly 3,000 passengers were affected, writes the newspaper Bild. At the airport, tent beds were set up for stranded travelers.
The first alarm came in at 21:30 on Thursday after several people saw drones flying near the airport. Only an hour later could the police confirm that drones had been spotted, then inside the airport area.
Type and number?
The airspace around the airport was closed and police helicopters were deployed for reconnaissance. Due to the darkness, however, no information about the model and size of the drones could be provided, says the federal police's spokesperson Stefan Bayer to Bild.
It is also not known how many drones are involved.
Air traffic to and from Munich's airport is reduced every evening at 22:00 to minimize disturbances for residents in the vicinity and between midnight and 05, no flights are made at all.
Air traffic resumed on Friday morning.
Several countries
Recently, similar incidents have occurred at airports in Denmark, Norway, and Poland, all of which have cancelled flights due to unknown drones in the airspace.
In Poland, air defense shot down drones that made incursions into the country's airspace during Russian air attacks on Ukraine, and in Romania, reinforcements have been made in airspace protection after suspected Russian drones flew over the country's territory.
And as recently as Thursday, an EU summit in Copenhagen ended where leaders of member states discussed the drone incidents and how to defend themselves with a so-called "drone wall" along Europe's eastern border.
