More flights will be cancelled, trains will run late, and roads will be blocked by snow across Europe in the coming days as a cold snap is forecast to worsen, bringing more heavy snowfall after several days of travel disruption.
Authorities in the Netherlands told people to plan to stay at home if possible on Wednesday, with a fresh blizzard expected to arrive overnight.
French transportation minister Philippe Tabarot said on Tuesday airlines had been ordered to cancel at least 40% of flights at Paris’ main Charles de Gaulle Airport the next morning and a quarter of flights at the smaller Orly airport.
Public transportation in the Paris region will probably also be disrupted by the snow, he said.
As snowfalls are expected again, Dutch airline KLM said it had protectively cancelled 600 flights on Wednesday to avoid last-minute cancellations that could leave travellers stranded at Schiphol airport, one of Europe’s main hubs.
KLM had cancelled 400 flights at Schiphol on Tuesday and told travellers whose flights had been called off to stay away from the airport to prevent overcrowding.
“We haven’t experienced such extreme weather conditions in years,” said spokesperson Anoesjka Aspeslagh.
Stranded at Schiphol, Simiao Sun said she feared she would spend her 40th birthday in transit. She had been told she would have to wait three days for a rescheduled flight to Britain, where she lives.
“My child would miss school, and we would miss work, so I’m queuing here hoping to get a slightly earlier flight.”
KLM said it is offering alternative flights where possible and doing everything to help travellers but was “overwhelmed with inquiries”.
On top of that, all domestic rail services in the Netherlands were suspended early on Tuesday after an IT outage hit the rail network.
Trains began running in parts of the country after 9am, but problems persisted around Amsterdam, with high-speed Eurostar services from Amsterdam to Paris cancelled or late.
Roads in France were gradually clearing on Tuesday after snow caused severe accidents all over the country, killing at least five people, according to BFMTV news station.
Traffic in the Paris area hit a record 1,000km of jams on Monday night.
In Germany, temperatures fell well below -10°C in the south and east early on Tuesday. Much of the country was covered in snow.
In Britain, the meteorological office said winter weather hazards could continue throughout the week for most of the country. Temperatures overnight to Tuesday had fallen to -12.5°C in Marham, Norfolk, in eastern England, marking the coldest night of the winter so far.
Heavy snow and rain have also caused havoc across the Western Balkans, closing roads, cutting power and causing rivers to flood. A woman died in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo on Monday after a tree overburdened with wet snow fell on her.
Reuters
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