The Georgian Air Navigation Agency, a company operating under the country’s Ministry of Economy, rejected reports by Der Spiegel about complications on the runway of the Tbilisi International Airport forcing the aircraft carrying German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock to abandon its first landing run at the facility.
The company’s comments came after Der Spiegel said the German FM’s plane – arriving from the North Macedonian capital Skopje – had been scheduled to land at 11 pm Tbilisi time before the presence of another aircraft on the runway forced a 20 minute delay in its landing.
The magazine said the plane had landed “without any problems” in the second attempt.
In its comments, the agency denied the second run had been caused by the presence of an aircraft on the runway during the first landing attempt of the German minister’s Airbus A340-300, stressing the landing strip had been “completely free” for the initial landing.
Georgian Deputy FM Khatuna Totladze welcomed her German counterpart at Tbilisi airport.
It attributed the aborted first attempt to “pilot’s decision” and said repeated landing attempts were “normal practice” and never considered as an incident. (Agenda/Business World Magazine)
