Afternoon:
9°c
Holiday-makers stranded in London due to poor visibility
Kiran Randhawa and Benedict Moore-Bridger14 Jan 2009
THOUSANDS of holidaymakers were stranded at London's airports today after more than 100 flights were cancelled due to thick fog.
Sixty services were axed at City Airport alone. Another 45 flights were cancelled coming in and out of Heathrow, along with 16 at Gatwick. Dozens more flights faced severe delays.
Poor visibility due to heavy fog led to air traffic control company Nats restricting the flow rate of aircraft into and out of all three airports.
Most of the cancelled services were short-haul flights to destinations across Europe, including Milan, Zurich, Amsterdam and Madrid. There were severe delays on services to Düsseldorf, Aberdeen, St Petersburg and Paris. British Airways, BMI and easyJet were among the airlines affected. BMI cancelled flights to Edinburgh, Belfast, Brussels, Amsterdam, Glasgow and Manchester.
Queues formed at all five terminals at Heathrow as passengers sought to make other arrangements after 22 flights were grounded at the airport this morning, and 19 were cancelled coming in.
British Airways cancelled up to 32 flights in and out of Heathrow with many of its incoming services arriving more than an hour late. A BA spokeswoman said: "We have had to cancel a handful of short-haul flights on routes where we have multi-frequency and there are delays to other services.
"We have tried to keep the disruption to a minimum for passengers by cancelling services on routes where there is another flight shortly afterwards."
Philippe Lawrence, 60, was among the passengers caught up in delays at Heathrow. The security consultant was due to travel to Brussels on a British Airways flight this morning from Terminal Five, but the flight was delayed.
Mr Lawrence, who is on a three-stop trip across Europe before returning to his native Canada, said he faced missing an urgent business appointment tomorrow. He said: "I'm used to delays due to bad weather but if I don't get to Brussels tomorrow it will be disastrous." Richard Woods, 44, and Thereze Hanlon, 45, were on their way to Burkina Faso when they missed their connecting flight to Paris because of the dense fog at Heathrow.
The pair were planning to visit Ouagadougou to build a primary school for disadvantaged children in the area, but their 12.50 flight was cancelled.
Mr Woods, an architect from Cardiff, said: "We're going for 10 days and these delays mean we've missed our flight from Paris. We're afraid we may have to pay £650 for new tickets."
A City Airport spokeswoman said only one service operated normally out of the airport this morning, leaving 60 inbound and outbound flights cancelled. There were 16 services cancelled at Gatwick altogether, with eight departures and eight arrivals affected.
Luton and Stansted airports were operating normally.
Reader views (2)
What has this got to do with needing a third runway?
If anything a third runway would help as it would allow BAA to spread the flights over three runways instead of the current two.
- Andrew W1, London, 14/01/2009 20:30
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Another reason why we don't need a 3rd runway.
- Ed, London, 14/01/2009 16:26
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