Heavy snowfall in the United Kingdom is causing chaos at airports

London Stansted Airport is temporarily closed and Heathrow and Gatwick airports experience flight delays

Madrid, December 12 (European Press) –

Three of the UK’s busiest airports were forced to close their runways on Sunday as a powerful storm blanketed the country in snow and ice and grounded hundreds of planes, causing dozens of flights to be delayed and cancelled. . Highways and railways were also affected by the storm and full normal life is not expected to resume for a few days.

According to what was reported by the British newspaper “Daily Mail”, flights at London Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports were severely disrupted, remaining on the ground and dozens of flights had to be diverted to other cities.

Through their Twitter accounts, airports have warned passengers of possible flight delays and asked them to check with airlines about their condition and weather forecast before departing for airports.

For their part, airlines have also informed passengers of flight conditions and their policy on delays and cancellations through their social networks, ensuring that their teams are “working hard to minimize interruptions for customers”.

However, given the seriousness of the interruptions, users of the airlines that were affected by the delay and cancellation expressed their dissatisfaction with the response of the various companies through social networks, denouncing the lack of information and staff at the airports.

Spaniards are surrounded

Such is the case of dozens of Spaniards who are still trapped at London’s Stansted Airport and who have suffered greatly from the bad weather in the past few hours. According to passengers, this icy weather was already foreseen, which is why they blame airports and airlines for not being able to clear snow runways and anticipate the situation.

Some passengers claimed they were trapped on the plane at their home airport for several hours, as they were allowed to board and were later told they could not leave due to the poor condition of the runways.

This is the case of the passengers, who returned to Spain on Sunday with Ryanair, who denounced that the company offers them the only solution that they find a flight on their own in the application “online”, but until Saturday there are no return flights. Another suggested option is to fly to a different destination and then be able to rent a car to get to your final destination.

Passengers reported that no one from the company contacted them or offered them any accommodation to spend the night despite being with children, elderly people and pregnant women who had to wait in long lines sleeping at the airport.

Many of the passengers today worked or had to go to class, although at the moment they do not know how and when they can return to Spain.

In the case of Iberia, the airline confirmed to Europa Press that, at Heathrow’s request, they had canceled a flight (IB3170 MAD-LON and returned it IB3163), but changed the caliber of one of the flights. which operates the A350 berth position for all customers.

Outages on highways and railways

Heavy snowfall also caused many traffic accidents during the day on Sunday, as many drivers faced adverse road conditions.

As reported by the BBC, authorities have advised drivers in northwest England to adapt their driving to freezing conditions over the weekend and only go out when absolutely necessary, especially in areas where heavier snowfall has been recorded in the London areas. South East and South West England, Central England and Northern Ireland,

In addition, many metro lines were affected by the closure of stations and the non-operation of sections.

The UK Met Office has announced that a severe weather warning is in effect until 09:00 on Monday (local time), warning of possible delays to road and rail travel.