Dec 22, 2006, 17:51 GMT
London - Christmas travellers endured a third day of misery at British airports Friday as dense fog caused hundreds of flight cancellations and severe delays.
Passengers wait in line to gain entry to a tent erected near the drop off point as thick fog has forced airlines to cancel many flights in the UK and into Europe. Heathrow, the UK's largest airport has been hit hard by the weather and many passengers have been left stranded. Thursday December 21st 2006. EPA/DANIEL HAMBURY EPA
The authorities said more than 300 flights were cancelled out of London's main Heathrow airport, including all domestic connections of national carrier British Airways (BA).
The disruption followed the cancellation of more than 500 connections in previous days. More than 40,000 travellers were affected.
Smaller British carrier bmi also cancelled a number of flights as the fog meant air traffic controllers had to limit the number of hourly take-offs and landings.
BA said it planned to re-start domestic services to and from Heathrow from Saturday. BA's services to Paris and Brussels would begin again on Christmas Eve. The airline said it hoped to operate 95 per cent of services on Saturday, returning to a full schedule on Sunday.
Extra trains and coaches were laid on to transport travellers to destinations in Britain.
Heathrow would normally have handled around 190,000 passengers Friday but that figure is likely to come down to around 150,000.
BA is using larger aircraft in the form of Boeing 747s and Boeing 777s on some short-haul routes out of Heathrow to Madrid, Frankfurt, Geneva and Copenhagen Friday and over the weekend to help increase the number of available seats.
Meanwhile forecasters at the BBC's weather centre said they were now 'reasonably confident' that visibility would improve at Heathrow Saturday, as the fog moved north.
Surveys have shown that a record 2.5 million Britons were planning to travel abroad for Christmas this year.
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