ISTANBUL
Flights have returned to normal at Istanbul’s main airport on Thursday after being suspended for several hours due to extreme weather.
The heavy snowfall – which particularly hit the city’s European side and Bosporus area – led Turkish Airlines to cancel around 350 domestic and international flights on Wednesday and Thursday.
Eight thousand passengers whose flights have been cancelled were sent to nearby hotels on Wednesday night. Turkish Airlines also delivered 35,000 food packages for travellers waiting at Ataturk International Airport.
Some passengers had to spend the night at the airport.
Kaspae Hause, a Swedish national, is one of them. He had to spend the night at a meeting room of the airport together with his wife and three children. “It was a difficult night. I hope we can fly to our country today,” he said.
Turkish Airlines officials have asked passengers to follow their flights on its website or call 444 0 849 before coming to the airport.
Bad weather conditions also affected the traffic on highways and ferry services. The TEM highway between Buyukcekmece-Mahmutbey districts on the European side of the province were halted for some hours on Wednesday night as dozens of trucks could not move due to not having snow chains.
The snow depth in some districts reached 75 centimeters. Snow storms also uprooted 189 trees across many areas.
Ferry services in and out of the province – like Bursa-Yenikapi, Pendik-Yalova and Kadikoy-Yenikapi – have remained cancelled.
Turkey’s National General Meteorology Directorate predicts that snowfall will stop on Thursday midday local time but that it would start snowing again that night until Friday morning.
