Europe’s Travel Backlog Begins to Ease

Travellers remain stranded in airports across the continent as officials struggle to cope with winter weather.

The storm that hit London’s Heathrow airport likely wouldn’t have given Canadian airports much trouble, but in a country more accustomed to rain and fog than heavy snow the weather has caused serious problems. After 13 centimetres of snowfall on Saturday resulted in days of massive cancellations, Heathrow officials announced that about 70 per cent of scheduled departures, or about 900 flights, will leave as scheduled on Wednesday. Air Canada has been given permission to resume its full schedule of flights to Heathrow, but airline officials say it could take a week to move all passengers who had booked flights to London. Normally highly-coordinated planes and crews are scattered throughout Europe after being turned away from Heathrow.