London Heathrow is expecting the busiest winter’s day since before the COVID pandemic today, a travel journalist has said.
Simon Calder, the Independent’s travel correspondent, told Sky News the airport is also predicting this December will be its busiest ever.
There have been “lots of Love Actually” moments throughout the morning, showing how “heavily emotionally invested” people are in getting home to their loved ones for Christmas.
Mr Calder says he has seen “at least” 20 British Airways flights cancelled so far today – most of them short-haul domestic or European flights.
Away from the airport, Mr Calder says his “heart goes out” to passengers at London St Pancras, the rail hub for Eurostar, where dozens of services from London to Paris and Brussels and back were cancelled due to a surprise workers’ strike yesterday.
“That represents about 25,000 people waking up this morning where they didn’t intend to be,” he says.
Rail passengers can “expect some very crowded journeys” today in the fallout from yesterday’s disruption.
“The thing to really be aware of is that everybody is going to be travelling by rail – particularly today and tomorrow – not least because two of the main intercity hubs in the UK, London Paddington and London King’s Cross, are going to be closed for engineering works on Christmas Eve,” Mr Calder says.
https://news.sky.com/story/storm-pia-latest-severe-disruption-at-two-major-london-stations-snow-and-ice-warnings-issued-wind-speeds-hit-115mph-13035524
