Heathrow: Second day of freezing fog grounds 80-plus flights

Travel plans of 25,000 passengers disrupted

More than 80 flights to and from Heathrow were cancelled on Tuesday due to freezing fog. The cancellations were demanded from the airlines in order to limit arrivals to 26 per hour, well below the maximum rate.

Grounded flights over Monday and Tuesday total around 230, affecting an estimated 25,000 passengers.

British Airways, which has the majority of slots at Heathrow, cancelled 60 short-haul flights, including multiple departures to Aberdeen, Basel, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Munich and Nice.

The airline said: “Following a second day of poor forecast weather, we have once again agreed with Heathrow Airport, National Air Traffic Services (NATS) and other airlines to slightly reduce our flight schedules at Heathrow on Tuesday.

“For safety reasons, Air Traffic Control has to allow greater space between landing aircraft in fog and this will mean a reduced number of aircraft being allowed to land each hour at Heathrow.

“As well as slightly reducing our Heathrow flight schedule, other flights are likely to be delayed throughout the day.

“We are sorry for the difficulties caused by the poor weather and will do all we can to minimise the effect it has on our operations.”

BA’s partner, Aer Lingus, grounded eight flights: four to and from Dublin, plus round-trips from Belfast and Cork.

Lufthansa and its Eurowings subsidiary cancelled six flights, to and from Cologne, Frankfurt and Munich. SAS Scandinavian Airlines, Swiss and the Dutch airline KLM have also axed departures.

Problems were compounded by high winds in the north-east US, which has led to cancellations from Boston and New York.

The only runway in the world that has more flights than Heathrow’s pair is at Gatwick, which also experienced problems. The airport said: “Fog across the South East and Europe is causing delays and some cancellations to flights to and from Gatwick.”

BA's service from Gatwick to New York JFK was cancelled.

The disruption occured on the first day of the big terminal switch at Gatwick. All easyJet flights now operate from North Terminal. Tomorrow, BA moves to the South Terminal while Virgin Atlantic shifts its operations to the North Terminal.

Some rail commuters in the London endured train cancellations and delays – but not on the Southern network, which ran almost to schedule as train drivers called off an overtime ban. A derailed freight train at Lewisham in south-east London blocked key lines to Kent and Sussex, with disruption on the Southeastern network expected throughout the evening.