LONDON - THE backlog of passengers at London's Heathrow Airport has been almost cleared as the dense fog, which disrupted flights during the Christmas holidays, lifted.
Most stranded passengers, who were forced to stay in hotels, have either caught their flights or returned home, the BBC reported on Tuesday.
The dense fog, which led to 86 flights being cancelled on Sunday, has lifted, and flights are operating as normal, it said.
Up to 1,000 stranded passengers had to spend the night at Heathrow on Sunday waiting for alternative flights, while others slept in nearby hotels.
The situation worsened on Monday, when a further 64 flights in and out of Heathrow were called off, with Gatwick airport cancelling five, Edinburgh four and Glasgow one.
Although the fog had cleared on Monday, scores of flight crews woke up in the wrong cities after failing to make their journeys and, as a result, airlines were unable to keep to their schedules, affecting 9,000 passengers.
Airport operator BAA said services should now be back to normal.
Most of the cancelled flights were on British Airways routes to Europe, said BAA spokesman Stuart Butchers.
However, weather-related cancellations are 'nowhere near as bad as last year', said Association of British Travel Agents spokesman Sean Tipton.
British Airways cancelled about 40 per cent of its short-haul flights at Heathrow last year on Dec 22 because of fog.
All carriers to and from the airport were affected last year as 350 flights were cancelled on Dec 20, 384 on Dec 21 and 284 on Dec 22.
