Flights cancelled as winds hit Sydney Airport

Sydney Airport was left with just one runway yesterday after strong winds forced the close of other landing strips.

A tweet by Seven News shows the flights board at Sydney airport.

Sydney Airport was left with just one runway yesterday after strong winds forced the closure of its other landing strips, leading to the delay and cancellation of dozens of flights.

Up to 70 inbound and outbound domestic flights were cut altogether, with many others running behind schedule.

“A single runway operation is in place due to today’s winds,” a Sydney Airport spokeswoman said. “On a normal day we have two parallel runways in place going north and south; on windy days, such as this, there is a single runway operation going east and west. This means only one runway in the airport is in use at the moment until the winds die down.

“The airlines make the decision whether or not they cancel completely, so we can’t give an exact number, but there have been many cancellations flowing throughout the day.’’

The Bureau of Meteorology issued a strong wind warning for Sydney’s waterways just after 11am; an hour later wind gusts of up to 67km/h were recorded.

The strong winds were forecast to ease today.

A BoM spokesman last night said the system was moving off slowly, but wind gusts remained into last night.

“There are no strong wind warnings in place for Sydney closed waters tomorrow, so we can expect these stronger winds to ease over Friday,” he said.

Sydney Airport said any flights departing from the airport were “running relatively on time” by late yesterday.