London, Paris snowed in as travel, traffic chaos ensues
The severe cold weather that has hit much of western and northern Europe continues to affect flight schedules, though flights to and from the UAE are less-affected today.
At least one Emirates flight, EK072, from Paris, France to Dubai, UAE has been cancelled for today.
The flight was scheduled to leave Charles De Gaulle Airport (CDG) at 09:25am today.
Yesterday three flights to Dubai including two Emirates flights were affected.
Etihad Airways yesterday delayed two flights into Paris Charles De Gaulle airport, however, as of this morning all flights to and from Paris and London were on schedule.
More cancellations at Heathrow airport
London's Heathrow Airport warned of further flight cancellations on Monday which would leave thousands more passengers stranded on the fourth day of delays after heavy snow swept across Britain.
The airport, one of the world's busiest, cancelled 260 flights on Sunday, the equivalent of 20 percent of its usual schedule. Meanwhile the Eurostar train service also cancelled four trains due to snow and ice.
As the bad weather that began on Friday looks set to continue into next week, Heathrow said it was cancelling 10 percent of flights planned for Monday.
"Latest forecasts for tomorrow show a high probability of low visibility conditions. This will reduce the capacity of the airport and without action would cause significant disruption to passengers and flights," a statement said.
It said the cancellations on Monday would allow more time for other aircraft to take off and land, reducing the likelihood that there would be last-minute cancellations that would cause even more disruption to travellers.
Britain is braced for a continuation of the bad weather which has left hundreds of homes without power, closed schools and caused transport chaos in recent days, with several weather warnings in place for overnight Sunday.
Four climbers were killed in an avalanche in the Scottish Highlands on Saturday. The two men and two women were found dead after the accident near Glencoe, and another women is in critical condition.
Three of the climbers were named as Una Rachel Finnegan, 25, from Northern Ireland, Tom Chesters, 28, who was living in Leeds, and 24-year-old Christopher Bell, from Blackburn, northwest England.
Transport disrupted as France blanketed in snow
Heavy snowfall hit large parts of France on Sunday, putting Paris under a picturesque blanket of white stuff but causing major disruptions to air, road and rail transport.
With up to 20 centimetres (eight inches) of snow falling in the most-affected areas over the weekend, more than a quarter of France's regions were on alert and the weather service warned that more snowfall was expected overnight.
Snow covered the largely empty streets of Paris, where drivers were hesitant to take to the icy roads and all bus services were cancelled.
But a few braved the weather including a man in a red-and-blue snowsuit seen cross-country skiing on the streets of Montmartre and young girls sledding beneath the hill-top Sacre Coeur Basilica.
The city's famed Metro was largely unaffected, but about 100 passengers had to be evacuated when a subway train was blocked on an exposed bridge that passes over the River Seine.
Firefighters spent an hour assisting the passengers, with boats deployed on the river in case anyone fell in.
City transport operator RATP said the Metro is expected to run as normal on Monday, but that only about 50 percent of the buses will be taken into traffic.
The capital's airports struggled to deal with the thick covering of snow, with 40 percent of flights cancelled at Charles de Gaulle and Orly.
Flagship carrier Air France said it had managed to go ahead with almost all of its long-haul flights and just over half of its short- and medium-haul journeys, with average delays of about one hour. For Monday, it said its long-haul flights are expected to operate normally at Paris airports, but only about 50 percent of the shorter flights.
Airport officials said they had asked airlines to maintain a 40 percent reduction in flights on Monday because more snowfall was expected.
Some airports, including in Lille in northern France and that in Beauvais, outside of Paris, were forced to close Sunday.
The closures resulted in budget carrier Ryanair having to divert several of its flights to other airports.
More than 120 Ryanair passengers, heading from Oporto in Portugal to Lille, were left stranded in the western city of Nantes. Airport officials said they would be brought to their final destination by bus on Monday.
The snow also caused delays and cancellations on France's TGV high-speed rail network, with rail officials urging travellers to if possible put off journeys planned for Sunday.
The Paris-Limoges-Toulouse line was shut down because the cold affected the rails and another line, in the Pyrenees, was closed due to the risk of avalanches.
© Emirates 24|7 2013
