Paris:
A fresh storm brought new delays to the European Continent on Friday, snarling travel for thousands of Christmas Eve travelers from Paris and parts of Germany but London's Heathrow Airport was operating almost normally.
"On a day like today, we would normally have had around 25,000 flights across Europe by now," Rena Fakhouri, a spokeswoman for the air safety organization Eurocontrol, said Friday morning. "By contrast, we've had about 15,500 so far today." Not only is that number insufficient to move frantic holiday travelers s with tickets for Friday, it also means airports are adding to their backlogs of stranded passengers.
Only about 50 percent of scheduled flights were operating Friday morning from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport, the major international hub for Paris, after an overnight onslaught of snow and ice. Delays are expected until 11 p.m. local time, the airport said.
Light snow and cold temperatures were forecast for the rest of the day, but the forecast for Saturday offered relief with sunny skies.
As has been the case in other parts of Europe this week, the French airport's problems have been compounded by a shortage of de-icing equipment and of ethylene glycol, a component of de-icing fluid. The French daily Le Figaro cited Transport Minister Thierry Mariani as saying France was importing additional de-icing fluid from Germany and the United States. There is enough fluid on hand for about 200 flights to take off Friday, he said.
London Heathrow said it would be operating 1,100 flights, 95 percent of the normal schedule. Some carriers were taking extra measures to clear their backlogs. Virgin Atlantic said it was adding a charter flight from Heathrow to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
Frankfurt Airport, Germany's main hub, escaped the worst of the recent bad weather, and said it was operating near normal. But Düsseldorf and Dortmund airports were closed in the morning, and Schiphol Airport, serving Amsterdam, was reporting delays and cancellations. Brussels Airport was in disarray, with no arrivals expected before Friday afternoon.
The authorities cautioned travelers to check their flight status online before setting out for their airports.
Roads were dangerous across much of France, and the authorities warned drivers to avoid all but essential trips. Eurostar warned of cancellations and delays on the its rail service through the Channel tunnel connecting Paris and Brussels with London. It said four of 42 trains had been canceled and added that speed restrictions on the French end of the high-speed network would cause delays.