Lithuania reopened to air traffic at its largest and busiest Vilnius airport early on Sunday after several hours of flight suspensions and diversions over balloons possibly flying in its airspace, the airport’s operator 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.
Air traffic at Vilnius was restored at 4:50 a.m. on Sunday (9:50 p.m. ET, Saturday) after a decision was made late on Saturday to close the airspace “due to a possible series of balloons heading toward Vilnius Airport,” the operator said in a statement on its Facebook page.
Lithuania’s public broadcaster LRT cited the head of the country’s National Crisis Management as saying late on Saturday that 13 balloons were heading towards Vilnius airport.
According to notices posted to the US Federal Aviation Administration’s website, the flight restrictions were due to “hot air balloon flights.”
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