Chaos In Moscow: More Than 350 Flights Canceled Or Delayed Due To Drone Attacks

Some flights were rerouted to other cities.

Late Friday evening, the authorities—for the fourth time this week—restricted operations at Moscow’s airport hub due to drone activity by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Domodedovo, Vnukovo, and Zhukovsky were closed to incoming and outgoing flights for approximately 7.5 hours, while Sheremetyevo was closed for 5 hours, according to reports from Rosaviatsiya. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin stated that 144 Ukrainian UAVs were shot down overnight as they approached the city. Against this backdrop, more than 350 flights were canceled or delayed at Moscow airports, according to calculations by “Medusa” based on data from online flight boards. msk1 reports the same figures. Some planes were rerouted to other cities.

According to “Ostrozhno, Novosti,” the Antalya–Moscow flight (Pegasus Airlines) was forced to land in St. Petersburg, and passengers were kept on board for several hours, with staff stating that the flight would depart once the drone threat had been lifted. Passengers on Aeroflot, EgyptAir, and Flydubai flights also ended up in Nizhny Novgorod due to the closure of Moscow’s airports. As a result, they were transported to the capital by bus. The Moscow–Perm flight was delayed by nine hours, passengers told “Ostrozhno, Moskva.” According to them, the departure was rescheduled five times. Due to problems at the Moscow hub, disruptions also began at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport, where 19 flights are currently delayed by more than two hours.

The airport was also closed due to the threat of UAVs in the Leningrad Region, according to “Ostrozhno, St. Petersburg.” Flights to Moscow, Nalchik, Izhevsk, Vladikavkaz, Kazan, and other cities, according to information on the online departure board. The press office reported that Pulkovo received 20 diverted flights, and some passengers were sent to Moscow by ground transportation.

“It’s absolute chaos at Sheremetyevo. I haven’t been able to fly out since yesterday. I feel like a pickle in a jar—there’s nowhere to even sit,” one of the passengers told msk1.

On the night of October 16, as reported by The Moscow Times, all Moscow airports were also closed due to the threat of drones. This affected more than 200 flights. Prior to this, drones had paralyzed operations at Moscow’s airports on the nights of October 9 and 14. On the first occasion, even President Vladimir Putin, returning from the CIS summit in Turkmenistan, was unable to land in the capital. At that time, 785 flights were delayed or canceled, and on October 14, nearly 550 were affected.

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