Air travel disruptions rippled across Europe for a fourth day in the countdown to Christmas as Frankfurt airport was closed yesterday morning after heavy snowfall.
Fraport AG’s Frankfurt Airport, Europe’s third-busiest, reopened two runways after shutting all three earlier this morning for snow clearance, spokesman Juergen Harrer said in a telephone interview.
Deutsche Lufthansa AG said it re-routed Frankfurt-bound long-haul jets to Munich and deployed additional wide-bodies to Dusseldorf and Zurich.
PHOTO: AFP
Northern parts of Germany were expected to receive as much as 10cm of fresh snow during the day, the German Weather Service said.
In London, tens of thousands of travelers who have been trying to head home for Christmas since the weekend remain stranded as London Heathrow Airport operates at a third of capacity and as snow, ice and frigid temperatures turned rail and road travel into chaos.
“It’s unbelievable,” Deutsche Lufthansa spokesman Thomas Jachnow said in a telephone interview. “We all thought it would get better and then this new wave of ice and snow hit us. Any optimism that our flight plan would normalize in coming days has dissipated.”
PHOTO: EPA
British Airways has canceled 165 flights scheduled to depart from Heathrow, according to the London-based carrier’s Web site.
“There is still ongoing disruption across Europe because of the adverse weather conditions,” airline spokeswoman Cathy Mussert said.
“There could be further delays and cancelations. We’re advising passengers to check with their airline to confirm their flight is operating,” she said.
Gatwick, which serves London, reopened as planned at 6am with 600 flights scheduled for the day, according to the airport’s Web site. Paris’ Roissy-Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports were set to begin the day with at least 28 canceled flights before 7am, data tracker FlightStats.com said.
The two Paris airports stayed open late on Monday to clear a backlog of flights delayed by the snow, and operating hours were extended for four days at Heathrow airport.
“It is necessary to allow as many airplanes as possible to fly as long as weather conditions remain favorable,” French Transport Minister Thierry Mariani said in a statement.
Snow and freezing fog have hindered air travel across Europe since last week with up to 20cm of snow falling in parts of the UK on Monday. Airlines including Cathay Pacific, Qantas and Virgin Atlantic Airways have also been forced to cancel flights, leaving thousands of travelers stranded.
“It can’t be beyond the wit of man, surely, to find the shovels, the diggers, the snow ploughs or whatever it takes to clear the snow out from under the planes,” London Mayor Boris Johnson told the BBC on Monday.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema