Airport delays live: Gatwick Airport warns of more disruption as rail stations closed

Better news for travellers in the North West as Manchester Airport is not seeing the kind of disruption that is causing flight delays in London.

A Manchester Airport spokesman said: “Air traffic controllers have kept a restriction in place this morning covering a number of UK airports including Manchester.

“At the moment though it’s not causing any disruption.” 

Manchester airports saw 22 cancellations, including six departures and arrivals serving Amsterdam on Friday.

After Christmas, millions of people are on the move around Britain. But anyone planning to travel by train during the remaining four days of 2024 faces possible disruption due to a combination of rail engineering work and strikes.

Even though most stations and routes have reopened after two days of closure, the UK’s two busiest stations – Liverpool Street and Paddington in London – remain shut.

Fog is essentially a cloud at ground level that causes a reduction in visibility to less than 1000 metres.

It becomes a much more noticeable thick fog when the visibility drops below 180 m, while severe disruption to transport occurs when the visibility falls below 50 m over a wide area (referred to as dense fog)

Fog is caused by tiny water droplets suspended in the air. The thickest fogs tend to occur in industrial areas where there are more pollution particles in the air allowing water droplets to coalesce and grow.

Gatwick Airport is currently showing as many as 54 delays on their departure boards.

A London Gatwick spokesperson said: “Temporary air traffic restrictions have been put in place due to fog causing poor visibility. Some flights may be delayed throughout the day.

“London Gatwick apologises for any inconvenience. Passengers should contact their airline for further information.”

In some areas, thick fog patches could reduce visibility down to just 100 metres overnight and into Saturday, the Met Office said.

“It’s that time of year when people are travelling around the country a lot and there are a lot of people on the roads,” Met Office meteorologist Liam Eslick said.

“There is a lot of fog covering much of England, mainly the South East and central England, but the rest of the country is seeing quite a bit of thick fog too.

“It will be pretty murky on Saturday morning and there will still be fog patches that will take a little longer to clear.”

Hundreds of airline passengers are waking up where they did not expect to be after thick fog disrupted flights on Friday.

The most extreme experience was at Teesside airport in northeast England.

Of the six scheduled arrivals on Friday, two landed with delays. Two diverted to Newcastle, 38 miles away. One went to Aberdeen.

The final flight of the day, on Ryanair from Alicante in Spain, circled hoping to land but then diverted to Dublin.

At London Heathrow, a Qatar Airways Airbus A350 diverted to Paris CDG. It eventually continued to its intended destination, arriving over three hours behind schedule, with the return leg to Doha consequently delayed by several hours – meaning missed connections for many passengers.

Four London City flights went to Gatwick and one – KLM from Amsterdam – touched down in Southampton. Manchester airport did relatively well with only one diversion: Jet2 from Tenerife, which went to East Midlands.

The UK’s two busiest stations, London Liverpool Street and Paddington, are both closed due to engineering work.

On the West Coast main line, which connects London Euston with the West Midlands, northwest England, North Wales and southern Scotland, the electricity supply has failed between Watford Junction and Milton Keynes Central.

National Rail says: “Trains may be cancelled, revised or delayed by up to 40 minutes. Disruption is expected to continue until 12 noon.”

Also, there is disruption on the West Coast main line between Glasgow and Motherwell. Avanti West Coast says Do Not Travel north of Preston before 10am.

At least 20,000 passengers hoping to fly to, from or within the UK had their flights cancelled on Friday, as airlines struggled to keep their schedules on track in heavy fog.

The worst-affected airport was London Gatwick, where 48 departures and arrivals were grounded, half of them on easyJet.

Upwards of 40 flights were cancelled at each of London City and London Heathrow, with British Airways grounding most of them.

Manchester airports saw 22 cancellations, including six departures and arrivals serving Amsterdam on KLM. Saturday has dawned with more cancellations.

British Airways has grounded 18 services to and from European destinations, including a holiday flight to Tenerife. At London City airport, Luxair and Swiss have grounded flights to and from Luxembourg and Zurich respectively.

Under air passengers’ rights rules, the cancelling airline must provide an alternative flight on any carrier as soon as possible – though bookings are extremely heavy. Passengers must be given means and, if necessary, hotel rooms while they wait.