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Transport round-up
Evening Standard3 Feb 2009
Find out how London's transport network is coping...
Airports: 100,000 hit by Heathrow's cancelled flights
More than 100,000 passengers were left grounded at Heathrow because of the snowstorms, it was revealed today.
The scale of the chaos at Britain's main airport emerged as BAA admitted almost 900 flights were cancelled yesterday.
A spokesman for the airports operator said: “There have been 59 arrivals and 49 departures cancelled today. We understand these are due to aircraft being in the wrong place. Yesterday 868 flights were cancelled. The usual daily volume of flights is 1,350. 180,000 passengers a day would normally pass through the airport.”
He said it was likely more than 100,000 passengers had been affected.
The spokesman added: “Around 700 people, mostly in Terminal 5, slept at the airport last night. We provided blankets, mats and water and tried to move them to quieter areas. It is up to airlines to rebook them and put them up in accommodation.
“There remain a lot of people in Terminal 5 who are flying today or need to be rebooked. We recognise the disruption has been deeply frustrating and really appreciate passengers' patience.”
A British Airways spokesman said the airline did not have to pay compensation because the delays and cancellations were out of its control, but was providing food and accommodation as a gesture of goodwill.
He added: “We are doing our best to look after passengers. We had 2,500 hotel rooms booked, we have been handing out food and food vouchers, and we will also refund passengers for their food and hotels if they have had to pay for it.”
Gatwick axed 47 flights yesterday and Stansted cancelled 170.
Passengers at Heathrow were held in queues for up to six hours today as they re-booked flights.
Many had stayed overnight at the airport as nearby hotels, charging up to £315, quickly filled up. Some travellers were unable to leave the airport because of visa restrictions and others decided to stay in the building to beat this morning's queues to re-book flights.
Some passengers will have been stuck at Heathrow for more than 60 hours by the time they fly out tomorrow.
Stuart Searle, 24, and his girlfriend Barbara Korell had been in Terminal 5 since 11pm on Sunday, and were unable to get a flight to Los Angeles until noon tomorrow. The pair were to catch a BA flight to Los Angeles before flying on to their new home in New Zealand.
Mr Searle, 24, a physicist from Weymouth, said: “We decided not to risk going to Barbara's home in Croydon because the public transport is not working and we're worried we won't be able to get back. There are no hotels around here that have room, so we're stuck.”
The BAA spokesman said passengers should check with their airline before setting off. He said teams worked through the night to clear runways using specialist vehicles.
Buses: limited services running
Buses were running today after yesterday's decision to withdraw all 8,000 of them but a full service was still to be restored and passengers were warned to check before they travelled.
Some services were fully suspended today. The 313, 491 and 377 from Edmonton, the 327 from Enfield and the 209 from Brentford were all called off while local roads remained impassible.
Many other services were cut in frequency.
Trams were also hit with the Tramlink service only running from Wimbledon to Wandle Park and suspended everywhere else.
Rail and tube: commuters face more delays and cancelled trains
RAIL and Tube passengers had little let-up in the misery today as bad weather hampered scores of services.
The delays and cancellations included:
● Circle line suspended for most of the morning and re-opened to suffer serious delays all day.
● District line suspended almost all day between Earl's Court and High Street Kensington,
with delays on other parts as a knock-on.
● Hammersmith and City line off between Whitechapel and Barking.
● Bakerloo line from Queens Park to Harrow and Wealdstone was first suspended then suffered delays while the Overground service on the same route was also disrupted.
● South West Trains, which carries 440,000 passengers a day, two thirds of them to and from Waterloo, said conditions were so bad that passengers should not travel. There was no service on routes between Waterloo and Dorking, Guildford via Cobham, Hampton Court and Alton.
● Southeastern, which serves Kent and south-east London into Cannon Street, Charing Cross and Victoria, suspended its service on nine routes with a severely reduced timetable on others.
● Southern, which operates from Victoria to the south coast, was stopping trains at Gatwick where commuters had to change for onward journeys to and from Brighton.
● First Capital Connect was operating a half-hourly service between the airport and Brighton. It was running a reduced service from Bedford to Moorgate and Brighton, and between King's Cross and Peterborough.
● First Great Western cut services to Greenford, Marlow, Bourne End and Henley, with a half-hourly service to Reading.
● Airport expresses to Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted were all reduced to half-hourly departures, while the East Coast mainline from King's Cross and West Coast from Euston both suffered cancellations.
For information, call Transport for London on 020
7222 1234 or National Rail Enquiries on 08457 484950.
Reader views (2)
If most people performed in their jobs as poorly as those responsible for our infrastructure, they would be sacked. Pedestrians have been left with a choice; walk in the road and risk getting run-over or walk on the pavement and risk falling over and injuring one's self. All pavements are still untreated 4 days after the snow in Guildford. The councils should be ashamed. As for the trains, what should we expect? I hear now SWT are going to run shorter trains as the snow has damaged them. What a joke, I didn't think they were even attempting to run a service on Monday.
- Jeremy, Guildford, UK, 05/02/2009 21:28
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I notice your poll asks, 'Should transport chiefs have done better' surely it should ask, 'Should Boris Johnson the London Mayor have done better' I do hope that under the new editor and ownership, the ES will cease to be the snivelling Johnson supporting rag it now is.
- david, London UK, 03/02/2009 21:59
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