passengers face further misery as more snow sweeps Britain

Thousands of air and rail passengers face further travel misery today as operators struggle to get back on track amid

further snow and freezing weather. After days of disruption with travellers sleeping at airport terminals and railway

stations, most services are expected to get moving again.

However, although Heathrow Airport’s second runway reopened last night, only two-thirds of flights are expected to run

today.Eurostar services are also subject to long delays due to speed restrictions on the French high speed network and nine trains have been cancelled.With heavy snow falling in many parts of the country again this morning, the Met Office has also issued severe weather warnings for the midlands, north Wales and south west England.

Forecasters also warned that a thaw is unlikely any time soon with temperatures struggling to rise above freezing for the rest of the week.
Andy Ratcliffe, forecaster at MeteoGroup, said: "The cold spell will keep its grip on the country at least until the weekend."Prime Minister David Cameron expressed his "frustration" at the length of the disruption at Heathrow, while airlines

accused BAA of failing to have enough de-icers to cope with the situation.

Speaking at a Downing Street news conference yesterday, Mr Cameron said: "If it's understandable that Heathrow had

to close briefly, I'm frustrated on behalf of all those affected that it's taking so long for the situation to improve."

Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, chief executive of airline BMI, told The Times the Heathrow situation was "completely unacceptable"."BAA was not prepared," he said. "It did not have enough de-icing fluid."The Prime Minister has stepped in and de-icing fluid has been released from other sources.

"This should have been possible without this kind of intervention."

The EU Commission also slammed Europe's air travel disruption as unacceptable and urged airports to "get serious"

about better planning for bad weather.

Heathrow's second runway finally reopened at 5pm yesterday but BAA chief executive Colin Matthews warned people

not to expect normal services immediately and urged them to check before going to the airport.

"It is good news to see aircraft taking off and landing from two runways but it's really important that passengers

understand that doesn't mean the full schedule is going to be restored instantly," he told Sky News."It's not just two runways we need – we need every other link in the chain to be fully up to speed and it's going to take some time to do that."
Asked about the plight of the thousands of passengers affected by the shutdown, he said: "It is heartbreaking – the

stories which we hear of people who are missing holidays, weddings, important family events and looking at whether or

not they can get home for Christmas.

"That's why we are focused as hard as we can be on building up the rate at which aircraft come and go to get

passengers where they want to be.

"When that's done, we will trawl all over this to find out what we need to do differently.

"If the weather is different, we will need different equipment – we'll buy it.

"But the short-term focus is to get passengers back where they need to be."

British Airways echoed the warning, saying: "We will continue to review our operation and, where possible, we will add

other flights to the schedule.

"However, it takes some time to rebuild an operation of our size and complexity at our hub airport, Heathrow, at very

short notice. It will take some days to return to normal."

Domestic rail services are expected to grind back into action today after many were severely disrupted by snow and

ice.

The East Coast line, one of the country's main railway arteries, returns to a "near normal" service after being suspended yesterday after hundreds of people were evacuated from stricken trains following damage to overhead power lines at Huntingdon, near Peterborough.There will be an hourly service between Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds and London although northbound services from London will take an extra 15 minutes due to an 80mph speed restriction between Sandy and St Neots.East Coast managing director Karen Boswell said: "We appreciate that many people are travelling home for Christmas over the next few days and our staff are working as hard as possible to ensure our passengers arrive at their final destination with minimal disruption."