UK weather latest: Travel mayhem as high winds see Heathrow cancel flights and trees block rail lines

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High winds are causing transport chaos across the UK and further afield, with hundreds of flights cancelled at Amsterdam, Heathrow and other airports.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport closed completely for around two hours, leading to cancellations to and from Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Gatwick, Glasgow, Heathrow, Inverness, London City, Manchester, Newcastle and Southampton. KLM was worst affected.

Some flights were diverted until the storm had passed, such as the early KLM flight from Birmingham which landed in Paris. Others were delayed by many hours. The 8.25am arrival from Cardiff was not expected to touch down until 4pm. Some easyJet flights, from Gatwick, Luton and Manchester, were delayed by four hours or more.

Dozens of flights at Heathrow have been cancelled as the arrivals rate was slowed by air-traffic controllers. Aer Lingus, Lufthansa and SAS have cancelled some of their services, but British Airways passengers are worst affected, with around 30 flights cancelled, including links to Edinburgh, Milan and Nice.

BA told passengers: “We are sorry that the weather is likely to lead to some delays and disruption to our schedules.

“We will be doing all we can to minimise the effect the high winds have on our operations and will use larger aircraft where possible to help affected customers on any cancelled services get to their destinations on alternative flights.”

Railway lines across Britain are slowly returning to normal after many were blocked by fallen trees and debris.

Almost all rush-hour trains to Britain’s busiest station, London Waterloo, were either delayed or cancelled. The main lines from Southampton and Portsmouth were both blocked during the morning peak. Later, a track circuit failure near Clapham Junction – affecting signalling – cause massive disruption.

Services between Kent and London on Southeastern were disrupted by three separate incidents. The most serious was a train hitting a tree near Lower Sydenham in south east London. No one is believed to be hurt, but suburban services were seriously disrupted. Near Sheerness, a train struck a fence that had been blown on to the line, while a tree blocked the line near Deal.

In East Anglia, passengers were advised not to travel between Colchester and Norwich all morning, after high winds damaged the overhead electric wires. The lines from Lowestoft to both Norwich and Ipswich were closed because of fallen trees.

“An object caught in the overhead electric wires” between Stevenage and Peterborough caused cancellations and delays on the East Coast main line, with many trains on the link from London King’s Cross to Leeds, York, Newcastle and Edinburgh cancelled or delayed by up to an hour.

There were problems on the West Coast line between Crewe and Manchester, and Wolverhampton and Stafford, due to overhead wire problems.

On the Welsh border, the line between Chester and Shrewsbury and the Mid-Wales line were both closed – the latter after a freight train struck two sheds that had blown onto the line between Newtown and Welshpool.

One element of good news: a planned air-traffic control strike at Marseille, due to run until Saturday, was called off at the last minute.

Ferries are still sailing across the Irish Sea and the English Channel, but with delays of up to 90 minutes due to adverse weather. P&O, the biggest operator between Dover and Calais, is telling travellers: “Please check in as booked, we’ll accommodate you on the first available sailing.”