Travellers hope to get home for Christmas as travel chaos eases

LONDON - After days of delays, cancellations and travel misery for thousands of travellers, operators of London’s Heathrow airport said they were expecting to run a near-normal schedule Thursday.

Airport operators BAA said around 1,200 flights were due to take off, which is almost a normal daily schedule.

British Airways, which cancelled more than 2,000 flights since Saturday, said it hoped to operate a full long-haul departure schedule Thursday and Friday.

BA said it would also operate a normal schedule at Gatwick Airport and at London City Airport. However, customers were still advised to check with their airline if their flight was operating.

The situation also eased for train travellers booked on Eurostar services to Paris and Brussels, which had also seen long delays. However, Eurostar is taking no new bookings for journeys before Christmas.

BAA has come under intense attack for its failure to deal with the consequences of the heavy snowfalls last Saturday. Under pressure from politicians, BAA chief executive Colin Matthews has agreed to forego his 2010 annual bonus.

BAA has denied latest allegations that the operators ran out of de-icer during the peak of the crisis.

“It is categorically untrue that we have either run out of de-icer, failed to order enough de-icer or accepted de-icer supplies from the government,” a spokesman said.