Almost 2 kilometers long

Mega queue at Munich Airport

One Facebook user reported a waiting time of 2.5 hours. "I haven't even experienced anything like this at Chinese New Year in Beijing," he wrote, stunned.(Bild: TikTok/X.com)

Window days, late summer evenings and Oktoberfest: in Munich, tourists currently have to put up with huge crowds. However, there is no party atmosphere away from the Theresienwiese festival grounds at Munich Airport. Strong nerves and stamina are required there. On Thursday, travelers had to wait for hours in a queue up to two kilometers long. Pure chaos!

It is generally advisable to arrive at the airport early. However, since the end of September, passengers in Munich have had to put up with long waiting times and sometimes wait several hours for their check-in or admission to the security check.

On Thursday, however, an unprecedentedly long queue had formed at Germany's second-largest airport, which "snaked from inside the building twice across the forecourt of the airport" and - according to an eyewitness - "along the entire terminal".

Video: In a TikTok video, a user shows the seemingly endless queue - without showing the people waiting inside.

An irritable and tense atmosphere
In the meantime, the queue reached a length of up to two kilometers, as the airport confirmed according to "Bild". It took passengers an hour to get through security. As the stressed and frustrated passengers naturally feared missing their flights, the atmosphere was irritable and tense.

Capacity too low
The problem: Terminal 2 has a central security checkpoint whose capacity could not cope with the rush on the public holiday, which already led to delays at the boarding pass scanners. In addition, construction work is currently taking place there, which is reducing the capacity of the security checks by eight percent. 

Airport spokesman Robert Wilhelm: "We have organized additional staff to ensure an orderly queue. This remained in constant motion and we distributed water to the passengers."

At the actual security checkpoint, all available gates were open so that the waiting time there could be reduced to around 15 minutes. The majority of travelers were able to catch their flight.

According to Bild, the airport spokesperson has already announced further tests of patience for the weekend: "On Sunday, at the end of the Oktoberfest, there could be long queues again."