Snow piles travel misery in Europe

London: Many European travellers were left stranded for another day after freezing weather conditions caused flight cancellations and left at least 90 people dead.

Britain's airports were recovering from a backlog but travellers were warned there could be delays and cancellations.

EasyJet cancelled more than 200 flights due to the "significant snowfall" and airport closures across Europe, while Irish carrier Ryanair grounded about 65 flights.

British Airways also cancelled a "small number" of short-haul flights on Tuesday morning, blaming the disruption caused by Monday's heavy snowfall, which had shut London Gatwick, Britain's second busiest airport, for several hours.

London Luton airport was also closed overnight, and although it re-opened many flights were cancelled or subject to lengthy delays.

British Airways chartered a Boeing 747 on Monday to fly about 350 stranded passengers between London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle, and said it would repeat the service again, a spokesman said.

Italian national carrier Alitalia restarted flights from Milan's Linate airport, while the bigger Malpensa airport resumed flights in early afternoon after disruptions.

Hundreds of passengers spent the night at Linate after the national carrier Alitalia, which accounts for some 75 percent of the airport's capacity, cancelled all flights in and out.

Berlin's Tegel Airport in Germany was closed for an hour, and more than 200 flights were cancelled at Frankfurt.

About 400 stranded passengers spent the night at Amsterdam's Schiphol on improvised beds.

Roads were also severely hit with Britain's AA breakdown service reporting a record 16,000 breakdowns on Monday.

Thousands of drivers were stuck in their cars in southern England overnight as another freeze descended, and the motoring association AA said it was their busiest night for 25 years, with about 700 calls received every hour.

In Buckinghamshire, west of London, about 100 people, including 20 children, spent the night in the John Lewis department store after being snowed in.

"There was no way that I was going to throw customers out into that," said store managing director Deborah Strazza, adding: "Basically we made up the beds and they all snuggled down in the bed department."

At least 90 people have died in winter storms across Europe, including 10 in Poland in the last day, the majority of them homeless men. Temperatures there have plunged to minus 20 degrees Celsius..

Eurostar trains resume service

Cross-Channel Eurostar Eurostar resumed a limited service  between London and continental Europe on Tuesday after four days of cancellations blamed on snow left tens of thousands stranded.

Eurostar trains were cancelled after 2,500 people were trapped for up to 16 hours on Saturday in the undersea Channel Tunnel with no power, air conditioning, food or water.

Eurostar said that it was clearing the backlog quicker than expected and invited customers with tickets for Tuesday to head to the station in the hope of getting them moving.

A Eurostar spokesman said its backlog was "considerably" less than 40,000 because some had flown home. Others returned by coach or ferry.

He admitted the company had taken some "reputational damage" over the last couple of days, but he blamed "a unique combination of climatic conditions in northern France" and ice.
 
The company said the trains failed after moving from cold air outside into the warmer tunnel, causing condensation which affected electrical systems.

"We have already started making the modifications and to ensure that these new protection measures work effectively we are conducting a series of test runs tomorrow," a Eurostar statement said.