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| snow in UK |
The forecast of prolonged cold weather is likely to bring further delays and cancellations to travel plans after two days of snow disrupted airports and transport networks.
On Saturday, Heathrow invoked new weather planning operations for the first time and cancelled 20% of flights ahead of snowfall.
In 2010, heavy snow brought chaos to the UK's primary air hub but after a L36m investment in cold weather equipment the airport said it was coping with this week's wintry conditions. It pointed out that a reduction in its capacity was primarily due to low visibility rather than snow clogging up the runways.
Large parts of the UK will experience further snowfall on Sunday, with up to 4cm falling in the north and west, and 6cm in the east Midlands, East Anglia and the south-east, including London.
Up to 10cm could fall in local areas, and 15cm on higher ground, weather experts said.
The Met Office has issued yellow warnings for ice for much of the country and advised people to take extra care as snow turns to ice in the sub-zero conditions.
In the Scottish Highlands, four climbers were swept to their deaths in an avalanche, while in Humberside seven people were taken to hospital after a doubledecker bus collided with two cars and ploughed into a garden, fire and rescue services said.
Travellers at regional airports including Leeds Bradford, Humberside and Newcastle were also frustrated by delays and disruption caused by the wintry weather.
The road and rail networks were also braced for further bad weather. The M48 Severn Bridge was closed in both directions between junctions 1 and 2, and was not expected to reopen until midday on Sunday.
Among rail services, Eurostar warned that all trains will be delayed on Sunday, with a number of services to and from Paris and Brussels cancelled.
Thousands of passengers were stranded at Heathrow for a second day on Saturday after planes were grounded. British Airways cancelled at least 100 flights, leaving people stuck for hours on planes or stranded at the airport.
On Saturday, passengers branded BA's treatment of them as "appalling" and said staff were not keeping them informed as to what was happening. BA and the airport insisted they were doing everything they could in difficult circumstances.
A spokeswoman for Heathrow said that until Sunday airlines had been making their own decisions to cancel flights.
"A lot of what has been happening at Heathrow before today … is related to airlines making their own individual decisions about where their aircraft are placed throughout the world and how they are best going to recover those aircraft as and when the snow falls, and whether they can even get them out of the other airports," she said.
The spokeswoman said it was "a myth" that other airports did not experience disruption due to the snow, adding that Munich, Geneva and Frankfurt were all experiencing significant disruption and that 40% of flights out of Paris were already cancelled on Sunday.
"What Heathrow is experiencing is absolutely in proportion to what other airports affected by snow are experiencing."
The airport said it had invoked its Heathrow demand and capacity balancing group procedure for the first time and cancelled more than 200 flights to help ease congestion within the terminals and give travellers advance notice.
Heathrow said it would normally have aircraft arriving or departing every 45 seconds, but due to the low visibility it had to increase the space between aircraft. "At the moment that spacing is doubled and that's why we are running at a reduced capacity," it said.
The airport said that while it couldn't "clear up the sky" to improve visibility, its snow-clearing operations were running according to plan.
"At 11am we'll do a sweep of the runways. So we close one while we clean the runway, and then we swap them over … so again that is going to reduce capacity."
Southern trains will run an amended timetable on Monday because of forecast snow.
Freezing conditions have also prompted motoring organisations to issue warnings. Darron Burness, the AA's head of special operations, said: "With the snow compacting down and turning icy, we're likely to see treacherous driving conditions throughout the weekend. Any fresh snow on top will just add to the problems."
Sally Webb, a forecaster with MeteoGroup, said: "We expect it to remain cold and there to be snow or sleet for the next week in most areas.
"It will also be icy everywhere, especially with the snow melt, and temperatures are going to be no more than 1C, dropping below zero overnight."
