North Europe ‘paralysed’ by heavy snow
LONDON: The heaviest snowfall in four years in Britain caused travel mayhem on Sunday, while more than 300 flights were cancelled at Germany’s busiest airport and a ferry ran aground in the French port of Calais.
Hundreds of air passengers were stranded in Frankfurt, Germany’s financial capital, as well as Britain, and many took to Twitter to complain.
Some 330 flights were cancelled by 5pm (12am in Malaysia) after heavy snow and sub-zero temperatures struck the region around Frankfurt, a spokesman for airport operator Fraport told AFP.
The airport – Germany’s largest air hub and the home base for major carrier Lufthansa – had been scheduled to handle a total of 1,260 flights over the day.
Duesseldorf Airport was also forced to close for four hours during the afternoon, news agency DPA reported.
In Britain, Birmingham Airport, serving the country’s second biggest city, suspended flights for all of Sunday morning, as staff worked to clear the runway in heavy snow.
The airport typically handles around 30,000 passengers and 200 flights a day in December. It diverted 11 flights elsewhere and expected to cancel more than that, a spokesman said.
One frustrated traveller described the airport as “like a war zone”.
In France, a ferry with more than 300 people on board ran aground in high winds in Calais, interrupting traffic in one of Europe’s busiest passenger ports but causing no injuries. – Agencies