THE race began yesterday to get passengers grounded at Heathrow to their destinations in time for Christmas as the freezing fog that caused three days of chaos finally began to disperse.

As the airport started to return to normality following more than 1,000 cancellations, British Airways got 95% of its passengers onto flights.

By last night it had cancelled a further 55 services, but plans to run a normal schedule today to help clear the backlog. The disruption is thought to have cost BA at least £25m.

Yesterday passengers were still being held in temporary marquees before being allowed to enter terminals where they faced long check-in queues.

There were still problems. Timothy Chambers, 43, from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, missed his BA flight to St Petersburg because he was summoned to check in too late. “When I finally got to the front of the check-in queue, the lady said that I had five minutes to get on the plane but that I would have to leave my bag behind, which was ridiculous,” said Chambers, who runs an engineering company.

Not all passengers were prepared to take their chances at Heathrow. Yesterday morning, the Olszowskis arrived in Sweden after a 1,400-mile journey across seven countries.

The six members of the family drove in four-hour shifts in two cars after setting out on Friday morning as soon as they found out their flight was cancelled.

They drove through France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Denmark and reached Sweden at 9am yesterday.

Patrick Olszowski, 29, from Sevenoaks, Kent, said his mother Kerstin, 54, was Swedish, and the family wanted to be sure of arriving in time for Christmas Eve celebrations.

Despite the problems, Mark Bullock, the airport’s managing director, said: “The picture is a lot better than it has been. We’re very hopeful we can clear the backlog in time for Christmas.”

About 120,000 passengers have had their travel plans disrupted since fog descended on Heathrow last Wednesday. BA was forced to cancel all domestic flights and many short-haul European services for three days.

Other airlines, including BMI, Alitalia, Lufthansa and KLM, were also affected by the bad weather.

Most cancellations involved short-haul flights because in these cases passengers could more easily find alternative transport.

But the disruption meant hundreds of passengers had to sleep overnight at the airport.

By midday yesterday, BA had reinstated all domestic flights and most services to Europe. From today it also plans to restart flights to Paris and Brussels.

There were few cancellations yesterday at other airports hit by last week’s fog. Only one flight was cancelled at Bristol, while Norwich, which had been closed, resumed a normal service.

In a separate incident, 82 passengers on a Monarch airlines “Santa flight” from Lapland to Gatwick last night staged a sit-in of nearly two hours on their plane. They were protesting at a decision to terminate the flight at Manchester because of technical problems.

Monarch eventually found a replacement plane, ending the protest.

For latest travel information go to:

Air
www.ba.com
www.baa.co.uk

Road
www.highways.gov.uk

Rail
www.nationalrail.co.uk

Additional reporting: Will Iredale and Gareth Walsh

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