Trains are in Europe are filling up, as flight options shrink (photo: Zurich main station)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - European flights remain chaotic Tuesday morning 21 December, and there are now fears that the repercussions will continue to affect flights through Christmas. Among Tuesday’s announcements from airports and airlines: no flights are departing or arriving at Geneva’s Cointrin (update: still closed at 11:00). BA says that only half its Heathrow flights are operating (Gatwick and City flights are running, however), Duesseldorf in Germany is iced in, Frankfurt is closed due to fresh snow, after first cancelling 300 flights on the heels of cancellations for nearly 600 Monday. Brussels is accepting flights, but none are leaving, reports TSR, due to a shortage of de-icing liquid for the planes.
Trains are proving a difficult option as well, with a one-kilometre line forming at St Pancreas station in London for the Eurostar train, Swiss television TSR reports.
Background and contacts for airlines in Geneva / GenevaLunch
Links to other sites: BBC, Guardian, Le Monde (Fre) TSR (Fre), The Local, Germany
Paris, France (GenevaLunch) – Eurostar will not be running trains in or out of Brussels, Belgium for a second day, following the train crash near Brussels Monday 15 February that killed 18 people. Passengers with tickets are asked to exchange them for a later date or they can ask for a refund. Paris trains are operating normally and Lille service is suffering some delays. Contact: Eurostar.
Eurostar, the operator of high-speed trains through the Channel tunnel, was ordered by French President Nicholas Sarkozy to resume regular service by Tuesday 22 December after he met with Guillaume Pepy, the head of the SNCF, the French national railways operator. The French president also demanded that appropriate information be supplied to passengers, in a communique 21 December.
