Air travel has been severely disrupted in south-east Britain after thick fog reduced visibility. At several busy airports, including London Heathrow and Gatwick, between Friday midday and Saturday night in total more than two hundred flights had to be cancelledand many others were able to take off or get off with a long delay – reports the British daily Independent.
The most extreme case was a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul, which landed nine hours late. Passengers on Etihad’s flight from Heathrow to Abu Dhabi were delayed seven hours. Due to the delays, many people did not even catch their connecting flight.
The situation is aggravated by the fact that it is one of the busiest airspaces in the world, and the end of the year is traditionally a peak time for travel, so the flight cancellations have so far affected about twenty thousand passengers. Many flights were diverted to other airports.
For the time being, further prospects are not rosy either: according to the Met Office, fog will remain in England and Wales on Sunday, and visibility may drop to just a hundred meters in some areas. And Nats, Britain’s main air traffic control provider, has announced that safety restrictions will remain in place in low-visibility areas.
Among the most seriously affected airlines, easyJet apologized to passengers in a statement, stressing that safety is their number one priority. A British Airways spokesperson said that although only a small number of their passengers are affected by the issue, they are sorry for any inconvenience caused and their staff are working hard to find a solution for passengers.
British aviation has recently been hit hard, last Sunday the number of flights had to be reduced due to strong windswhich resulted in the cancellation of more than a hundred flights.
Cover image: Illustration (Source: Pixabay)
Source: magyarnemzet.hu
