Snow continues to cause Europe travel chaos

A British Airways aircraft lands as another taxis for take off at Heathrow Airport in west London December 21, 2010. Snow and freezing temperatures continued to ground flights to and from Britain on Tuesday, with travellers hoping to get away for Christmas likely to suffer delays and cancellations for several more days. REUTERS/Toby Melville

December 21, 2010. London (KATAKAMI / CNN) -- Snow and nasty weather continued to blast Europe, stalling train travel and extending the nightmare for many trying to travel by road and air.

Heavy snowfall halted all plane travel at the Frankfurt airport in Germany Tuesday for a short time, said Thomas Uber, an airport spokesman.

"The problem is that we clear a runway and right after the snowplow has gone over it, it is full of snow again because there is so much coming down," Uber said.

Hundreds of flights were affected and the closure caused massive delays, Uber said.

At London's Heathrow Airport, Britain's busiest, officials said only a third of scheduled flights were likely to operate Tuesday. One runway was closed, said an airport official.

London's Gatwick Airport said the airport had reopened Tuesday but still 32 flights had been cancelled. The flights were cancelled mostly because of problems at other airports, an official said. Despite the cancellations, Gatwick was scheduled have more than 600 flights at the airport.

The snow had also hampered high-speed train travel, Eurostar spokeswoman Mary Walsh said.

"Due to the continuing bad weather, speed restrictions are in place on our high speed lines, adding up to two hours to journey times. As a result we can not operate as many trains as planned," said Walsh.

CNN meteorologist Ivan Cabrera said Europe may soon get a respite on the snow that has been hitting the area for days. The snow should taper off and the next storm that will hit Europe will be mostly rain, Cabrera said.  (*)