LONDON – Travel disruptions were easing across the UK and Europe yesterday as temperatures rose above freezing in most places, allowing airports and trains to resume services that had been disrupted that morning.
Eurostar said the backlog of passengers from the weekend had been cleared after trains through the Channel Tunnel began running following three days of cancellations.
Edinburgh airport was shut for much of the morning yesterday because of snow. Flights resumed in the early afternoon.
Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, was open and its runways clear. By mid-afternoon, most delays were less than an hour. A total of 51 flights to British and European destinations were cancelled yesterday. Gatwick and Luton airports were open, with most flights due in the early afternoon landing on time. EasyJet meanwhile cancelled 74 flights across Europe yesterday.
A Ryanair flight from Dublin slid off an icy patch on the runway at Glasgow’s Prestwick airport. There were no injuries and no damage to the plane.
Frankfurt airport’s information centre said flights were taking off mostly on time after delays in the morning. Berlin’s airport reported that most flights were arriving and leaving on time, though there were some delays and cancellations.
In Milan, there were delays at Malpensa airport, where it snowed throughout the night, SEA, the airport’s operator, said on its website.
The temperature in Warsaw yesterday rose above freezing for the first time in 10 days and should remain there for the next two days. Seventy-nine people are reported to have died in Poland as a result of severe weather this week.
Two women died and 47 other people were injured after a coach overturned on an icy road in Cornwall on Tuesday night.
The vehicle – carrying passengers back from a trip to see a Christmas lights attraction – ended up on its side near Penzance. Of the 47 people hurt, five have been left seriously injured with the rest described as “walking wounded”.
The coach is understood to have left the road, hit a tree and ploughed through a hedge before coming to a stop on its side in the village of Townshend, about seven miles northeast of Penzance.
A police force spokesman said the dead were two women from the west Cornwall area.
One woman was pronounced dead at the scene and the other died after being taken to hospital. – (Bloomberg, PA)