Snow and ice plunge Europe into Christmas transport chaos

BERLIN/PARIS/LONDON - Winter weather hit weary travellers across Europe Friday as pre-Christmas ice and snow disrupted air and road networks.

In Paris around 2,000 passengers were marooned at Europe’s third largest airport, Charles de Gaulle. Around a third of Friday’s 1,200 scheduled flights were cancelled after a strike by workers at Glykol, which makes de-icing fluid, caused a shortage.

“There’s no chaos on the trains, there’s no chaos on the streets but there’s a real problem with de-icing fluid which is in short supply at airports at the moment,” Secretary of State for Transport Thierry Mariani told the radio station France Inter.

Passengers in one terminal also had to be evacuated over fears that the roof might collapse under the weight of snow. The roof of the same terminal collapsed in 2004, shortly after its opening, killing four people.

The German rail system was badly hit with services cancelled after the brake systems in some trains froze up. Fallen trees also damaged overhead rail power lines or blocked railway tracks.

More than 700 passengers were forced to spend part of the night on five trains stuck between Berlin and Hanover after the wiring for the rail network iced up. The Berlin-Hanover route is one of Germany’s most important rail links.

Ice also hit the country’s roads, with many streets and highways becoming as smooth as glass. After weeks of heavy snowfall and sub-zero temperatures, milder temperatures in the last 24 hours resulted in rain, which turned to ice after falling on the frozen ground.

This brought traffic to a halt in large parts of the nation and led to closures in sections of its highway system. Road accidents left at least one person dead.

Nor were air travellers spared. Snow forced Dusseldorf airport, one of Germany’s major air traffic hubs, to close for a period during the morning.

Travel at London’s Heathrow airport returned to near-normal Friday after days of chaos, but airlines still urged passengers to check beforehand whether their flights were leaving.

British Airways (BA) said it was operating all its long-haul flights from Heathrow, as well as the vast majority of short-haul services.

However, some short-haul flights from airports outside London had to be cancelled Friday due to the continuing bad weather in Europe, airlines said.

At Birmingham airport in central England, flights to and from Brussels and Paris were affected, while Aberdeen and Edinburgh airports in Scotland warned passengers to expect delays and cancellations.

Train travel within Britain was hampered by snow and ice in northern and eastern parts of the country as three major lines ran reduced timetables. The main lines from London to Scotland were most seriously affected.

Forecasters, predicting a continuation of the current cold snap over Christmas, said Britain could be heading for its coldest December since 1890.

Elsewhere, heavy goods vehicles remained banned from southern Belgium’s motorways. Many remained stuck on roads after heavy snowfall.

In the Netherlands, Eindhoven airport was temporarily closed and drivers of heavy goods vehicles were advised to avoid the provinces of Limburg and Nordbrabant.

Meanwhile in Italy, half of the city of Venice was reported flooded, with areas affected including its world famous Piazza San Marco. The flood was the 13th worst the city had suffered to date.