Airline passengers have been hit by delays today due to heavy fog around airports in London and the south-east.
Air traffic control body Eurocontrol said there were “high” delays at Gatwick, Heathrow, London City, Stansted, Luton and Southampton on Friday morning (December 30).
The fog meant that air traffic controllers had to increase the intervals between landing aircraft due to the poor visibility. Weather conditions were expected to improve on Friday afternoon.
British Airways said in a statement: “For safety reasons, air traffic control has to allow greater space between landing aircraft in fog or during periods of low visibility, and this will mean a reduced number of aircraft being allowed to land each hour.
“We are sorry for the difficulties caused by the poor weather and will do all we can to minimise the effect it has on our operations.”
Easyjet said the fog was also affecting airports in Amsterdam and Paris as well as southern England.
The airline added: “This is due to clear early this afternoon. In the meantime, it will cause delays to flights across our network as air traffic control restrictions are imposed.
“In many cases, we have to push back our aircraft from the gate and then hold in a queue until we can depart. This could mean our customer could be waiting on the aircraft for a while prior to departure.”