Christmas plans have been dampened for thousands of travelers planning to venture across the Atlantic for a Christmas getaway.
The howling snowstorms that disrupted European travel over the weekend have moved on, but it will take days for airlines to unravel the snarls left by hundreds of canceled flights, some of them from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
Among the hardest hit were the London airports, shut down by heavy snows for a couple of days. Even though operations have resumed at Heathrow and Gatwick, the backlog of disappointed passengers remained long on Monday.
Heathrow said it would remain on a reduced schedule until at least Wednesday morning.
Heathrow will have only a third of its scheduled flights operating at most, "and passengers should anticipate further delays and cancellations in the following days and potentially beyond Christmas Day," the airport announced.
American Airlines Inc. spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan said Monday that the bad weather caused major problems for American's European operations.
"We've had to make a lot of cancellations of service in and out of London and in places like Brussels and Manchester [England] because the weather there has just not allowed the airport officials to handle the volume of traffic that they normally would have," Fagan said.
On a normal day, American operates 18 round-trip flights a day between the U.S. and Heathrow, Fagan said. "Today, we're flying 10. Tomorrow, we're only going to fly six," she said.
The weather problems caused American to cancel its two flights between D/FW and Heathrow on Saturday and Sunday, and British Airways Plc canceled its single flight both days. While American operated both of its D/FW-London flights Monday, BA canceled its flight that day. American plans to operate a single round trip between D/FW and London today.
Since airplane seats are normally sold out during the week before Christmas, the airlines will have difficulty accommodating stranded passengers with later flights.
About 40 percent of flights were canceled at the Frankfurt airport and at Paris' Charles de Gaulle.
Passengers slept in makeshift dormitories at the Paris airport and at Amsterdam's Schiphol, while staff at Heathrow and Gatwick airports in London handed out foam mats and foil blankets to the stranded. Some fashioned improvised beds from clothes, chairs and stacked suitcases.
"Dad, are we in Argentina yet?" one elementary school child sobbed, as his father bought sandwiches, playing cards and comic books from a store inside a Heathrow terminal building.
Jane Wiest, a 45-year-old would-be airline passenger, wanted to get to Miami. On Friday, she, her husband and their four children boarded a British Airways flight.
"It was a comedy of errors," Wiest said Monday from Heathrow, where hope was triumphing over experience. "First they needed to de-ice the plane, but there was a queue for the machine, and then they ran out of de-icer." Then the airline crew walked off the plane, having reached the end of its shift, and after six hours the passengers had to walk off, too.
The family rebooked for Monday and returned to Heathrow, only to discover the flight was canceled. They were hoping to catch a plane to New York.
"There are mattresses and blankets and pillows all over the place," Wiest reported of the departure lounge. "There's very little food left. There are huge queues to get a muffin, and then when you get to the front of the queue, there are no muffins left."
At Heathrow's sprawling Terminal 5, tired and disgruntled passengers faced lengthy waits without much information as piles of garbage grew throughout the complex.
"The whole situation is horrible," said teenager Sophiya Bolkova, as she clutched her ticket home to Moscow after three days' delay. "We are very angry. People were just mean, rude, sleeping on the floor, babies sleeping on the floor, no information, no help, no money for hotels."
American Suzie Devoe, 20, spent two nights on the airport floor and was desperately trying to get back to Washington for Christmas.
"I just want to get home, I want to be with my family. But I'm being held in a horrible limbo," the Bristol University student said.
Airlines are offering travelers the opportunity to change their plans at no penalty if their trip is hampered by weather. In some cases, they're encouraging it.
"If you are due to travel from Heathrow between now and 24 December, please consider whether your travel is essential," British Airways posted on its website. "If you do not need to travel you can cancel your flight, and get a full refund, or change your flight to another date in the next 355 days."
U.S. airlines also struggled with bad weather in parts of the western United States and in the northern half of the country, although the disruptions haven't been as severe as in Europe.
Compounding the problems is that Christmas is less than a week away.
"It is the holiday season," American's Fagan said. "We are doing all that we can to ensure that our passengers get where they want to go for Christmas and beyond. But we're also facing weather in various parts of the world that are making us alter our original plans."
The Associated Press and The New York Times contributed to this report.
AT A GLANCE Travel tips
•Check with your airline before going to the airport. Even if the weather locally is sunny, your plane may be stranded or delayed by a blizzard elsewhere.
•Have the reservations phone number of your airline handy. If your flight is canceled, call quickly to try to eschedule.
•For your smart phone, download your airline's reservation and flight info app so you can quickly check for changes.
•Register online to have your airline send phone, text or e-mail updates.
•Pack snacks in case you're stranded, hungry and looking at closed airport restaurants at 2 a.m.
•Stressed parents make stressed kids. Mellow out as a favor to your spouse and children.
•Reserving a connecting flight through a warm-weather airport will decrease the chances that winter weather will stop you.
SOURCE: Dallas Morning News research
