Increasingly desperate travelers are struggling to get home today in time for Christmas as Europe’s key airports tried to dig their way out of snow and ice.
Only one of London Heathrow’s two runways was operational this morning, a day after almost all flights at one of the world’s busiest international airports were canceled.
Hundreds of thousands of people were left stranded over the weekend, with many sleeping at the airport.
Today, officials at the airport said “only a handful” of flights were canceled.
Paris’ Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport is due to cancel 30 per cent of flights , as is the city’s second airport, Orly, Aeroports de Paris said.
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And Frankfurt airport in Germany has called off 325 flights out of a scheduled 1,300 to 1,400, spokesman Robert Payne said. Some of that is because of the weather in Germany, and some of it is because of flight disruptions at other airports, he added.
The airport, Europe’s third busiest, has 450 people working “around the clock, de-icing and and removing snow,” he said.
British Airways urged passengers not to go to Heathrow unless they know their flight is operating, and encouraged people who did not need to travel to cancel their flight or rebook it.
More than 200,000 passengers were due to take off from Heathrow yesterday, said Donna O’Brien, a spokeswoman for Heathrow airport operator BAA. (CNN)
