Tens of thousands of airline passengers face severe disruption to their journeys because of unauthorised drone activity near one of Europe’s busiest airports.

Arrivals and departures at Frankfurt airport in western Germany were suspended from 11.12am local time. The airport police service said: “A drone was sighted at Frankfurt airport.

“The state and federal police are working together to provide information and avert danger. There may be delays.”

Diversions began almost at once, with at least nine arrivals touching down at Cologne – including a Lufthansa flight from Manchester and a United Airlines transatlantic jet from Washington DC.

Eight planes have diverted to Nuremberg, including the Lufthansa service from Birmingham. 

A Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt from Heathrow is on the ground at Dusseldorf. 

Other Frankfurt-bound aircraft have landed Erfurt, Stuttgart and the second Frankfurt airport, Hahn.

Lufthansa has grounded at least a dozen departures so far, all of them domestic or European services.

More cancellations are likely as delays build up.

British Airways’ lunchtime departure from Frankfurt to London City is currently shown as 90 minutes late.

Frankfurt is the fourth-busiest airport in Europe, after London Heathrow, Paris CDG and Amsterdam. On a normal March day, around 180,000 passengers use the airport.

If flights are disrupted, the airline must provide passengers with alternative transport as soon as possible, and provide meals and, if necessary, accommodation.

In the summer of 2019 environmental protesters unsuccessfully tried to halt operations at Heathrow airport by the use of drones.

At Gatwick airport, around 1,000 flights were cancelled just before Christmas 2018 due to an unauthorised drone being flown in the vicinity of the world’s busiest runway. The perpetrator has not been found.

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