The Smart Marty Sky Dispatch
Flights cancelled at Moscow airports for second consecutive night due to drone attacks
Moscow airports once again introduced restrictions on the arrival and departure of flights on the evening of 16 October and the night of 16-17 October due to the threat of Ukrainian drone attacks. Over 350 flights were delayed or cancelled, most of them at Sheremetyevo.
Moscow airports again imposed arrival and departure restrictions on the evening of 16 October and the night of 16-17 October due to the drone threat, curtailing normal flight operations.
More than 350 flights were delayed or cancelled, with the majority of disruption centered at Sheremetyevo Airport, according to the cited reports.
Some aircraft were diverted to alternative hubs; flights operated by Aeroflot and Flydubai were redirected to Nizhny Novgorod, while a flight from Antalya to Moscow landed in St. Petersburg, with assurances that it would proceed once the threat subsided.
Passengers faced extended holds, including being kept on board for several hours without meals, and in some cases were transported by bus to Moscow from diversion points.
St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport also suspended operations due to the drone threat, with reports of multiple delays there as well.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin stated on social media that about 140 drones heading toward the city were destroyed since midnight, reflecting the scale of the ongoing drone threat to air traffic.
Pulkovo and related disruptions add to broader context for Russia, where delays of longer-than-two-hour passenger flights increased in the first nine months of 2026 compared with the prior year.