Workers try to clear the snow at London's Heathrow Airport, after all flights at the airport were grounded Saturday Dec. 18 2010.Steve Parsons/AP
Underwear bombs, volcanic ash clouds and now snow.
European airports were crippled by unusually harsh winter weather over the weekend, stranding hundreds of thousands of holiday travellers.
London's Heathrow Airport stopped accepting arrivals and allowed only a handful of planes to take off Sunday because maintenance staff were unable to adequately de-ice the tarmac.
Airports in France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands were also closed or experiencing delays.
Air Canada says it is only able to operate one-third of its normal schedule through Heathrow, with just six takeoffs and landings allowed Monday.
The airline currently plans five departures today from Heathrow to Canadian airports - two to Toronto and one each to Halifax, Calgary and Vancouver.
Air Canada says it is waiting for more information from Heathrow before determining which flights will depart from Canada for London this evening.
Snow and freezing temperatures are causing travel chaos in Britain and much of Europe, and Air Canada is advising Europe-bound travellers to check its website for flight status before leaving for the airport.
"Whatever luck is out there is not on the side of the airline industry," said Douglas Reid, a professor at Queen's University who studies the airline industry. "It's weather dependant, confidence dependent, economy dependent. And they have no plan B."
London Mayor Boris Johnson summed up the exasperation as Britain suffered another day of travel setbacks.
"It can't be beyond the wit of man surely to find the shovels, the diggers, the snow-ploughs or whatever it takes to clear the snow out from under the planes, to get the planes moving and to have more than one runway going," he said as British Airways cancelled its Monday short-haul schedule from Heathrow.
Even though many stranded travellers dismissed the weekend weather as mild by Canadian standards, snow and ice are unusual conditions for many European capitals, leaving airports unprepared to cope.
And the December storms came at the end of a rough year for the European travel sector.
Last Christmas, Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to ignite explosives hidden in his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, prompting an international security clampdown.
And in April, a cloud of volcanic ash spewed from Iceland's Eyjafjallajoekull, forcing the near total closing of continental airspace.
Sunday's unexpected shuttering of Heathrow will likely create ongoing delays, with more than a million passengers expected to pass through the airport this week.
Air Canada will not charge passengers affected by the delays who want to change or cancel their flight, and the airline suggested customers avoid non-essential travel.
But there are few times of the year when travel is more essential, and Mr. Reid said Europe's travel woes expose an industry ill equipped for anomalous events.
"They're vulnerable to so many things beyond their control," he said. "And this is not the time of year they want to have issues."
Air traffic control agency Eurocontrol said Monday on its website that the situation at Heathrow had become "chaotic."
Embarrassed British officials promised an inquiry into the poor performance of the transport network, with Transport Secretary Philip Hammond planning to address Parliament about the failures, which included massive delays on the Eurostar rail service linking England to France and Belgium.
At Heathrow's sprawling Terminal 5, tired and disgruntled passengers faced lengthy waits without much information.
American Suzie Devoe, 20, was one of many who had spent two nights sleeping on the airport floor in a bid to get home for the holidays. She was desperately trying to rearrange a flight so she could get back to Washington to spend Christmas with her family. "The whole situation has been a complete nightmare," said the Bristol University student. "I just want to get home, I want to be with my family. But I'm being held in a horrible limbo."
More snow is forecast in some areas of Britain for Monday afternoon, adding to the problems, with British Airways warning of more flight cancellations, particularly in the greater London area, where all airports have been affected.
Forecasters have said Britain is experiencing some of the most severe winter weather in a century, with continued freezing temperatures and snowfall accumulations expected Monday afternoon and evening.
With files from AP