Strong winds cause travel chaos at Sydney, Melbourne Airports
Travel chaos descended on Sydney Airport this morning as severe winds impacted thousands of passengers.
Winds of more than 90km/h forced the closure of two of the three runways with thousands stranded at the airport.
Both Qantas and Virgin Australia reported major delays with disruption likely to last all day.
"International and domestic terminals are experiencing some flight delays. Please contact your airline for more information," the airport tweeted early Friday.
Melbourne Airport is also being affected.
"Sydney and Melbourne Airports have reduced the number of flights allowed to arrive and depart each hour, which is impacting all airlines," Virgin said in a statement.
"This may also affect flights arriving and departing into other destinations across the network."
Qantas flight QF12 from Los Angeles was forced to abort a landing at Sydney due to the gale force winds.
The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe weather warning for damaging winds in southeast New South Wales up to the Victorian border.
Fallen trees and power lines are a possibility, the Bureau said in its advisory.
The unusual weather system has already covered the Sydney area this week with a blanket of dust, and blizzard conditions are expected at higher elevations.
It added to a pattern of wild weather nationwide.
"We had severe storms across Queensland including Brisbane, we had emergency warnings for out of control fires across the Hunter district of New South Wales, and we had damaging winds further south, dust storms and also heavy snow. Thursday was an incredible day of weather across the country," said Sky News meteorologist Tom Saunders.
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