Heavy snowstorms moving eastward throughout the Nordics led to the cancellation of numerous flights on Wednesday, January 17 2024. We used our data to examine which major airports in Scandinavia were most affected by the weather and which airlines experienced the most cancellations.
The most impacted airport was Oslo Gardermoen (OSL) where a total of 90 flights were canceled, this represents 21% of departing aircraft and 18% of arriving aircraft. The airport closed for a period of several hours from 13:00 UTC, as announced by a post on X. The closure caused several arriving aircraft to enter holding patterns south of the City, with holding aircraft occupying the top three most tracked aircraft at the time.
Oppdatering: Oslo lufthavn er stengt for flytrafikk frem til 15:30 på grunn av kraftig snøvær. Ny vurdering tas da. Passasjerer bes forholde seg til informasjon fra sitt flyselskap.
— Oslo lufthavn (OSL) (@Oslolufthavn) January 17, 2024
The second most affected airport was Copenhagen (CPH), which saw 7% of departures and 9% of arrivals canceled. Stockholm Arlanda (ARN), Bergen (BGO) and Gothenburg (GOT) saw a relatively low rate of cancellations below 5%.
Which airlines were most affected?
Scandinavian Airlines (SK/SAS) was by far the most affected airline, canceling 70 flights on January 17. Other airlines impacted included Lufthansa (LH/DLH), Norwegian Air Sweden (DY/NOZ), Wideroe (WF/WIF) and Brussels Airlines (SN/BEL). A small number of flights operated by British Airways (BA/BAW) and Eurowings (EW/EWG) were also canceled.
Riding the snowplows at Arlanda
Flightradar24’s Gabriel Leigh joined the teams ensuring that Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport remained open and operational during the storm. Take a look at the video below.
Get ready for 2:30 of Snowplow action at @Arlanda! Our very own @gwleigh joined the crew keeping operations running amidst yesterday's snowstorm at Stockholm's airport. pic.twitter.com/h1vgQLSwsd
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) January 18, 2024
