Heathrow cancellations: Dozens of flights cancelled as fog plagues airport

Some Gatwick flights delayed by four hours or more

Staying grounded: fog-related flight cancellations at Heathrow (Heathrow Airport)

Fog in the London area has wrecked the travel plans of more than 10,000 passengers.

On the busiest day of the week, dozens of Heathrow flights have been cancelled, while at Gatwick some delays are extending beyond four hours.

British Airways cancelled more than 50 flights to and from Heathrow, including services to Brussels, Dublin, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hamburg, Manchester, Milan and Rome. A BA round-trip to Baltimore-Washington was also cancelled, though this was unrelated to the had weather.

A spokesperson for BA said: “We're sorry that some of our customers' travel plans have been affected due to thick fog at Heathrow, which has led to a reduction in the number of aircraft which can land each hour.

“For safety reasons Air Traffic Control has to allow greater space between each aircraft in low visibility and this has a knock-on effect onto airlines' flight schedules.

“We are refunding or rebooking any affected customers onto alternative flights so they can continue their journeys as soon as possible.”

Passengers are not entitled to cash compensation, but the airline must provide meals and, if necessary, accommodation in cases of disruption.

Work has yet to begin on a third runway at Heathrow, which would increase resilience.

Many other airlines cancelled flights, including Aer Lingus to Dublin and Shannon, Flybe to Edinburgh, KLM to Amsterdam, SAS to Oslo, Stavanger and Stockholm, LOT to Warsaw, Lufthansa to Frankfurt and Munich, Swiss to Zurich and TAP Portugal to Lisbon.

Some departures were heavily delayed, including the 11.35am Iberia flight to Madrid which was shown as leaving almost six hours late. Passengers on the corresponding inbound service from the Spanish capital

At Gatwick, passengers on Royal Air Maroc to Casablanca, Flybe to Newquay, Thomas Cook to Barbados and Norwegian to Seattle were at least three hours late.

An easyJet departure to Lyon left four hours behind schedule. The airline told passengers: “Your plane was delayed on an earlier flight it operated due to arrival restrictions at London Gatwick because of poor weather conditions.”

Two British Airways Caribbean departures from Gatwick left over four hours late: the 10.05am departure to St Lucia and Trinidad, and the 10.20am to Antigua and Tobago.

Eurocontrol in Brussels said that apart from the slowed rate of arrivals at Heathrow “due to low visibility”, the two Istanbul airports were experiencing delays due to lack of capacity.

On the railways, passengers between Darlington and Durham face delays for the rest of the day due to defective rails.