Chaos ensured at the Istanbul International Airport as snow blanketed the country.
Turkey’s national airline, said on its website that owing to poor weather conditions in Istanbul, several of the airline’s flights from and to the Istanbul Airport and Sabiha Gökçen Airport planned to fly between March 10, 2022 and March 12, 2022 have been canceled.
10 Buta Airways planes flying from Baku to Istanbul failed to land at Sabiha Gokcen Airport due to bad weather. They were first diverted to Izmir and Ankara, and then returned to Sabiha Gökçen to land.
Approximately 162 flights to and from Istanbul Airport were delayed, with 60 of those flights being on foreign routes, according to a statement from the national flag airline, Turkish Airlines.
There were an additional 18 flights cancelled from Sabiha Gokcen Airport, which serves as Istanbul’s primary aviation hub on the city’s Asian side.
The heavy snowfall reduced the visibility distance and runway clearance work, causing some aircraft to make laps in the air, for a while.
It was learned later that air traffic at Sabiha Gökçen Airport had returned to normal after the decrease in precipitation and the cleaning works.
Snowfall is not expected to be strong as it was last week or in January when it brought daily life to a halt but the authorities already took precautions.
The Istanbul Governorate announced that all public and private schools were closed due to snowfall on Friday while pregnant and disabled civil servants have been put on administrative leave for the day.
The city’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu had advised the city’s residents to refrain from driving on Friday and take mass transit instead, in a bid to reduce the traffic from worsening amid the snow.
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