Flights at Tirana International Airport resumed today after a strike by the local air traffic controllers that started on Wednesday. The strike has technically not ended, but flights have still resumed because the Albanian government sent in the military on the grounds of national security. Replacement staff were also brought in from Turkey and Greece.
Two-day strike brings chaos to skies over Albania
Albania’s only airport in Tirana has seen severe disruption this week, with almost all commercial flights canceled for two days. Some flights resumed today, but they were operating with severe delays. The situation should stabilize by the afternoon now that the Albanian government has brought in replacement staff from Greece and Turkey for the controllers on strike.
Strikes in Albania are illegal, so Albania has sent in military troops and the policy into the building to end the strike, Euronews reports. The Defense Minster, Niko Peleshi, called the airport an object of national security.
At the same time, over the past few days, flights that would normally overfly Albania had to make detours to their flight paths to avoid the Albanian airspace. That gave rise to some very interesting routing.
For example, the screenshot below shows an easyJet flight from Pristina to Geneva making a major detour to its flight path. Because Kosovo does not enjoy full international recognition, flights departing from Pristina Airport need to fly south first before flying north, so this particular Airbus A319 had to make a major detour to avoid the Albanian airspace at the same time.
Only two departures from Tirana yesterday
Nearly all flights scheduled to depart yesterday from Tirana were canceled. The services included:
- Air Serbia to Belgrade
- Austrian Airlines to Vienna
- Lufthansa to Frankfurt
- Albawings to Milan Bergamo and Venice
- Air Albania to Pisa
- Pegasus Airlines to Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen
- Aegean to Athens
- Alitalia to Rome
- Wizz Air to Milan Bergamo
However, some flights did depart. These were the ones deemed “essential” by the Albanian government. These included:
- flydubai to Dubai, albeit with a 6.5-hour delay
- easyJet to Geneva with a 4-hour delay
- Air Albania to Istanbul with a delay of just one hour
Chaos at Tirana continues today
The flight disruptions have continued today, with further cancellations and severe delays. The list of flights at Tirana International Airport in the order that they were scheduled to depart is as follows:
- 04:25 Austrian Airlines to Vienna, departed with a 7.5-hour delay
- 06:10 Wizz Air to Milan Malpensa, departed with an 8-hour delay
- 06:20 Lufthansa to Frankfurt, canceled
- 06:20 Wizz Air to Turin, currently estimating a 12-hour delay
- 06:45 Wizz Air to Brussels Charleroi, departed 3.5 hours late
- 07:00 Albawings to Bologna, departed 2 hours late
- 08:20 Lufthansa to Munich, departed almost 2 hours late
The remaining flights scheduled to depart today from Tirana are operating with delays of under two hours or on time, so it looks as though the situation has stablized.
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