VILNIUS (Reuters) -Lithuania reopened air traffic at Vilnius airport, its largest and busiest air hub, on Sunday after hours of suspensions and diversions triggered by smugglers’ balloons carrying contraband from neighbouring Belarus, officials said.
European aviation has repeatedly been thrown into chaos in recent weeks by drone sightings and air incursions, including at airports in Copenhagen and Munich.
Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre (NCMC) said that the security scare occurred when helium weather balloons carrying smuggled cigarettes drifted towards the airport, halting 30 flights and affecting nearly 6,000 passengers.
A total of 25 balloons were detected in Lithuanian airspace, including two flying above Vilnius airport, the NCMC said, adding that seven of these had been recovered by authorities and were found to be carrying 12,000 packs of cigarettes.
The air traffic restrictions, which ended at 4:50 a.m. (0150 GMT), affected arriving and departing flights, causing some cancellations, the airport operator said.
FLIGHTS DIVERTED TO LATVIA AND POLAND
The Vilnius airport said that flight delays could occur throughout Sunday owing to disruption to crew and aircraft rotations. Overnight, most incoming flights redirected to neighbouring Latvia and Poland while departures were cancelled. One flight due to arrive from Copenhagen returned to Denmark.
NATO member Lithuania in August declared a 90 km (60 miles) no-fly zone parallel to the border with Belarus in response to drones entering from its neighbouring country, saying this would allow its armed forces to react to violations.
Lithuania, a strong supporter of Ukraine, shares a 679 km (422 miles) border with Belarus, a close ally of Russia. The capital Vilnius lies roughly 30 km from the border.
Vilnius airport is the Baltic region’s second-largest by passenger numbers behind Riga Airport in Latvia.
(Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius, Nerijus Adomaitis and Terje Solsvik in Oslo and Lidia Kelly in MelbourneEditing by Jamie Freed, Lincoln Feast and David Goodman)
