Severe winter weather is expected to continue disrupting travel across Europe in the coming days, with heavy snowfall causing flight cancellations, transport delays and road closures.
Authorities in the Netherlands advised residents to stay at home where possible on Wednesday as further snowfall and blizzard conditions were forecast overnight.
In France, Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said airlines had been instructed to cancel at least 40 per cent of flights at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport on Wednesday morning, along with around 25 per cent of flights at Orly airport. Public transport services in the Paris region were also expected to be affected.
Dutch airline KLM said it had cancelled 600 flights scheduled for Wednesday to minimise disruption and prevent congestion at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. The airline had already cancelled 400 flights on Tuesday and advised passengers whose flights were cancelled not to travel to the airport.
KLM spokesperson Anoesjka Aspeslagh said the airline had not experienced such severe weather conditions for several years.
Road conditions in France began to improve on Tuesday after snowfall caused multiple serious accidents across the country, killing at least five people, according to French media. Traffic congestion in the Paris region reached approximately 1,000 kilometres on Monday evening.
In Germany, temperatures fell below minus 10 degrees Celsius in parts of the south and east early on Tuesday, with snow covering much of the country.
In the United Kingdom, the Met Office said winter weather hazards were likely to continue throughout the week. Overnight temperatures dropped to minus 12.5 degrees Celsius in Marham, eastern England, the coldest night of the winter so far.
Heavy snow and rain also caused disruption across the Western Balkans, closing roads, cutting power supplies and causing flooding. In Bosnia, a woman was killed in Sarajevo on Monday after a tree collapsed under the weight of snow.
