A total of 28 of the 58 departing flights from Eindhoven Airport were cancelled on Wednesday due to the major network failure at the Ministry of Defence. A large number of arriving flights were also moved or had to land later than planned. On Thursday, there was no sign of the chaos at Eindhoven Airport.
It was a network failure at the defense, which caused a large number of emergency and government services to be down throughout the country. Flights could not depart from Eindhoven Airport, because it is a military airport.
All flights left on Thursday morning at the scheduled time. The arrivals hall is no busier than usual. “Fortunately, everything is back to normal,” said an airport spokesperson.
“Of the flights that were supposed to land, 21 landed at another airport.”
On Wednesday, 28 flights had to be cancelled by airlines because no air traffic was possible from Eindhoven Airport. “A number of flights were operated from other airports and a number of flights still departed from Eindhoven,” the spokesperson said on NPO Radio 1. According to her, flights that were cancelled could also have departed from other airports and at a different time.
This also applies to flights for travelers who were supposed to fly from abroad to Eindhoven Airport on Wednesday. “Of the flights that were supposed to land, eighteen were canceled and 21 landed at another airport. Ultimately, eighteen flights landed with us,” the spokesperson said.
There are also few extra flights at the airport on Thursday, because there are still passengers left behind. “We have one extra departing flight today. Airlines must therefore have extra aircraft available.”
“How do we ensure as best we can that this does not happen again?”
Travelers are relieved on Thursday that the chaos has been resolved. “We were supposed to leave yesterday, but I’m glad we didn’t,” laughs Yvonne Kanterman from Gouda. She has not had any worries about her flight to Valencia. “Usually these kinds of things are sorted out within a day.”
The same goes for Noah de Groot from Meerkerk, he flies to Ibiza on Thursday. “It’s very quiet today, everything has been resolved. I have to be honest, I didn’t watch the news yesterday.”
At Eindhoven Airport, discussions are being held about the outage and the consequences. “The outage was at the Ministry of Defence and we were affected by it because we use the air base and the Defence control tower. We cannot prevent this. It is of course a topic of discussion: how do we ensure that this does not happen again as best as possible.”
Photo: Eva de Schipper Photo: Eva de Schipper
