European airlines cancel hundreds of flights as snow chaos worsens – National
More flights will be cancelled, trains will be delayed and roads will be blocked by snow across Europe in the coming days as the cold snap is expected to intensify, bringing even more snow after days of travel disruption.
Authorities in the Netherlands told people to plan to stay at home if possible on Wednesday, with the storm expected to arrive overnight.
French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said on Tuesday that airlines had been ordered to cancel at least 40% of flights at Paris’ main Charles de Gaulle airport the following morning, as well as a quarter of flights at smaller Orly.
Public transport in the Paris region will also likely be disrupted by the snow, he added.
At Amsterdam’s Schiphol, where more than 400 flights were canceled on Tuesday, authorities told travelers whose flights had been canceled to stay away from the airport to prevent overcrowding.
“We haven’t experienced such bad weather in years,” said Dutch airline KLM spokeswoman Anoesjka Aspeslagh, as wintry weather disrupted traffic at one of Europe’s biggest transport hubs for a fifth day.
The airline later announced it would cancel another 600 flights on Wednesday at Schiphol Airport, where KLM is the main operator.
Living in Schiphol, Simiao Sun said he was afraid he would spend his 40 years on the road. He had been told that he would have to wait three days to reschedule his flight to Beijing.
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“My child was skipping school and we were both missing work, so I’m lined up here…hoping to get an early flight.”
KLM said it was providing alternative flights where possible and doing everything to help travelers, but was “frustrated by the questions.”
In addition, all domestic rail services in the Netherlands were suspended early Tuesday after an IT outage in the rail network. Trains started operating in parts of the country after 0900 GMT, but problems continued in Amsterdam, with high-speed Eurostar services from Amsterdam to Paris canceled or delayed.
Roads in France were slowly clearing on Tuesday after snow caused serious accidents across the country, killing at least five people, according to news channel BFMTV. Traffic in the Paris area reached a record 1,000 kilometers of traffic on Monday evening.
ELECTION OVER LARGE PARTS OF GERMANY AND FRANCE
In Germany, temperatures fell below 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) in the south and east early Tuesday. Much of the country was covered in snow.
In Britain, the Meteorological Office said that winter weather risks could continue for a week across the country. Temperatures overnight into Tuesday dropped to 12.5 degrees Celsius in Marham, Norfolk, east England, marking the coldest night of the winter so far.
Heavy snow and rain have wreaked havoc across the Western Balkans, blocking roads, cutting power and flooding rivers. A woman died in the capital of Bosnia, Sarajevo on Monday after a tree heavy with snow fell on her.
