Hundreds of angry, stressed passengers battled monster delays at the Eleftherios Venizelos international airport Saturday after a snow storm blocked runways and led to the cancelation of at least 141 flights.
The government was reported to be seeking damages from the airport operator over delays in clearing the snow.
Although the airport was reopened to traffic Friday evening, few aircraft were able to take off or land because taxi-ways and parking aprons were still deeply covered with snow.
Airport spokesman Spyros Stephanou said the main runway was cleared Friday afternoon, since when flights gradually have been restored "with delays of about five hours." In the 20 or so hours since the runway was opened, only 30 flights departed and 18 arrived, while 141 flights were cancelled, the spokesman said.
"It's dramatic," said a spokesman for Olympic Aiways, the national carrier, saying that airport authorities were to blame for the confusion.
Only one Olympic flight, to Paris, was able to depart before mid-afternoon Saturday, the spokesman said. All other flights, mostly domestic, were called off.
Stavros Constantinidis, the head of the civil protection service, indicated that Transport Minister Christos Verelis wasasking the airport authorities to explain why it took so long to clear the snow.
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