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Storm Franklin continues to force flight cancellations

Storm Franklin continued to cause flight cancellations at UK airports into Monday after Storm Eunice forced issues from Friday and over the weekend.

Aviation analytics firm Cirium said there had been 122 flights cancelled on Monday as of midday.

Cirium also reported flight cancellation figures over the weekend, with 181 flight cancellations on Sunday and 42 on Saturday as the country was hit by Storm Eunice.

On Friday, a total of 507 flights were cancelled as Eunice hammered parts of the UK.

Since Friday, 278 cancellations were in and out of Heathrow, 88 at London City, 68 at Manchester, 59 at Gatwick and 31 at Edinburgh.

British Airways, meanwhile, apologised for “letting people down” with delays and cancellations, but stressed continuous high winds over the last few days have made operations difficult.

The airline told the BBC stormy weather had made opening the luggage hold of its aircraft hard, and that passengers had faced delays getting their bags after landing.

It said it has also struggled to land and restock its planes on time, affecting inbound and outbound plane movements.

BA said items of machinery needed to offload bags, such as scissor lifts needed to load catering trucks on to aircraft, could not be operated in high winds because of the danger they pose.

The airline said every time a flight could not land it had to circle above the airport and then try again but that every time this happened it caused further delays to flights due to leave in the following hours.

It added that some staff had not been able to get to work because of the storms.


More:Travel agent face turbulence as Storm Eunice hits UK

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