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Chaos at Heathrow eases

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: After three days of chaos, which saw thousands of holiday travellers stranded at Heathrow and other British airports ahead of Christmas, there was good news on Saturday as most of the flights which had been cancelled due to heavy fog were resumed with "near-normal'' services expected by Sunday.

British Airways was hoping to operate 95 per cent of its domestic and 87 per cent short-haul services from Heathrow by Saturday evening.

Its flights to Paris and Brussels are expected to be at near-normal levels from Sunday.

As visibility improved, the situation at other British airports was also improving though delays continued. There were still long queues, especially at Heathrow, but passengers said they were at least confident of getting home by Christmas. "I don't mind the queue so long as I know I will get on to the flight,'' said one traveller. For a change, there was even praise for BA which in the past two days had come in for some heavy criticism.

Mark Bullock, managing director of Heathrow, described the situation as a "lot better'' pointing out that only 74 flights were cancelled on Saturday morning as compared to 370 on Thursday and 284 on Friday.

"We're very hopeful that we can clear the backlog in time for Christmas. British Airways, for example, have been putting on larger aircraft to some of their short-haul destinations, and as of Friday they've taken over 4,000 persons by coach to their destinations and that coaching operation continues today. Also the railways are laying on additional train services," he said.

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