Snowfall brings travel chaos to the UK

Liverpool airport tweeted to say that snowfall had closed the runway but said customers should arrive as normal for their flight and should contact their airline.

British Airways has reportedly cancelled 68 short-haul flights from Heathrow and Gatwick until Friday to ensure that other flights can go ahead.

In a statement on the carrier’s website BA said it had “agreed with Heathrow Airport, National Air Traffic Services and other airlines proactively reduce the flights schedules at the airport for several hours during the worst of the weather on Tuesday 27 February”.

It added that it was “keeping flights for later in the week under regular review depending on the latest weather forecasts we are receiving”.

EasyJet also issued a warning saying that it was “expecting disruption to some of our flights”, and urged customers to check with the airline’s Flight Tracker for updates before travelling to the airport. Ryanair is also understood to have cancelled flights.

Meanwhile trains at Stansted airport have been operating on a revised timetable due to the adverse weather conditions, which the airport has been tweeting updates about.

Newcastle took to social media to say that although it had seen snowfall overnight it was not experiencing any disruption to flights.

Leeds Bradford airport said passengers should check its website for updates, adding that its “snowteam are working hard to clear the airfield”.

The UK is not the only country to be hit by the “beast from the east” – snowfall has also been recorded in the south of France on the Cote d’Azur and even as far south as Rome, where schools were closed and traffic brought to a standstill.