Weather chaos continues as thaw remains days away
Baku, December 21 (AZERTAC). The winter weather is continuing to cause problems throughout the UK, with no significant thaw in sight this week.
Gatwick Airport reopened at 0600 GMT after closing overnight, but passengers were told to expect further disruption.
Heathrow Airport is operating no more than a third of all flights until 0600 GMT on Wednesday, and there are delays at regional airports across the UK.
East Coast trains suspended all services to and from London King`s Cross for the day due to powerline damage.
The company told all passengers at the station to go home and restart their journeys on Wednesday, following the damage at Huntingdon, near Peterborough.
And Eurostar passengers were queuing for more than half a mile on Tuesday morning as the cross-channel operator ran a restricted service at St Pancras station in London. The company asked customers booked to travel before Christmas to exchange their tickets or get a refund free of charge, if their travel was not essential. On Monday, people queued for up to eight hours. More than 100 passengers were stuck for six hours on a Southeastern train between Kemsing and Otford in Kent when rail lines froze. Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Birmingham, Luton, London City, Bristol, Cardiff and Southampton airports say all flights would be subject to delays and cancellations.
Exeter says it hopes departures on Tuesday would run as scheduled. Some 392 schools remain closed in Northern Ireland.
East Coast, First Capital Connect, First Hull Trains, Grand Central, the TransPennine Express, the Stansted Express, Heathrow Express, Virgin Trains, South West Trains, First Capital Connect and Chiltern Railways were all subject to delays and cancellations
The Foreign Office warns of disruption to road, rail and air travel in France, with delays in parts of Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland
Forecasters have predicted there will be no let-up in the freezing conditions until Boxing Day - with ongoing delays on the roads and railways.
BBC forecaster John Hammond said while the southernmost counties of England had seen a slight rise in temperatures, it would be very short lived, with no significant thaw this week.The Met Office has issued severe weather warnings of widespread icy roads across most of the UK.
Airport operator BAA said Heathrow`s south runway would remain closed on Tuesday and advised people not to travel to the airport unless their airline had confirmed the booking. It also warned passengers to expect delays and cancellations, possibly up to Christmas Day.
British Airways said it was suffering "significant disruption" in and out of Heathrow, especially to its short-haul schedules.
The government has agreed to relax regulations on night flights at Heathrow, allowing for arrivals until 0100 GMT each day until Christmas, while flights into London will be allowed to operate 24 hours a day.
BAA chief executive Colin Matthews has promised a thorough investigation into how Heathrow handled the freezing weather.
"When we have got every passenger and every bag where they want to be, we will crawl all over this incident to find out everything that we should learn from it," he told Channel 4 News.
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