Snow in the UK causes chaos at one of world’s biggest airports
Passengers at London’s Heathrow Airport faced a second day of delays and disruption yesterday after weekend snow caused chaos, long queues and left irate customers waiting for hours without information about their flights.
The airport – the world’s second largest international airport by passenger number – said on Sunday the responsibility lay with airlines to ensure they were “fully de-iced” before take-off, which led to the delays and cancellations.
Delays continued yesterday at the airport, which handled 75 million passengers last year, as the cold spell continued.
The problems at Heathrow led to delays at other UK airports.
The airport is the hub airport for British Airways, whose passengers vented their anger on Twitter, posting pictures of long-winding queues and complaining of a lack of information from ground staff.
As many as 50,000 BA passengers were stranded worldwide because delays in the de-icing of planes led to a backlog of flights, according to travel expert Simon Calder.
BA said the delays were “caused by the severe weather conditions that have affected airports across northern Europe”.
The airline said “time spent on de-icing aircraft to ensure safe operation plus air traffic control restrictions and the re-positioning of aircraft and crews from yesterday have led to further cancellations and delays today”.
Passengers blamed the airline for failing to have prepared sufficiently for the anticipated cold snap.
“Speaking with other passengers in the line last night, we all agreed that BA has learnt nothing from seven years ago and Heathrow has failed to address the issue of having enough de-icers to cope with demand when needed,” said Kenton Keithly, from California, who was left stranded in Newcastle after his connecting flight to Heathrow was cancelled. “Britain obviously doesn’t do well in winter. Everything breaks down.”
Flights were cancelled at short notice at the weekend and dozens more from a number of airlines were listed as cancelled or delayed to destinations in Europe, the United States and the Middle East yesterday. Both main London airports, Heathrow and Gatwick, urged passengers to check their flights before heading to the airports.
“We’re sorry for the problems and inconvenience caused by the disruption,” British Airways wrote on Twitter.
Heathrow officials also apologised for the disruption as airlines tried to bring order back to their timetables by moving planes around the globe. “We apologise to those whose travel has been impacted and regret the inconveniences that have been caused,” it said.
The cold snap led to the closure of hundreds of schools, trains halted and thousands left without power across large parts of the country. A ferry ran aground near the French port of Calais owing to high winds.
The problems are expected to continue with temperatures expected to drop as low as minus 15°C last night.
More than 30 centimetres of snow fell yesterday in Sennybridge in Wales, which had 32cm on Sunday.
“Blitzed by a snow bomb,” said a headline in the Daily Mirror.
We all agreed that BA has learnt nothing from seven years ago and Heathrow has failed to address the issue of having enough de-icers KENTON KEITHLY Traveller at Newcastle airport