Fog Strands Thousands At London Airport

Passengers Sleep In Tents At Heathrow As Flights Are Grounded During Busy Holiday Season

(AP)  Tens of thousands of passengers were stranded Thursday at Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport, after a thick blanket of freezing fog forced airlines to cancel hundreds of flights during one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

Bad weather also shut down Denver International Airport, forcing thousands of would-be travelers to spend the night at one of the busiest airports in the United States.

At Heathrow, heated tents, sleeping mats and food stalls were set up for anxious travelers as flights were canceled into the holiday weekend.

"It's bedlam," said Nicholas Velez, 23, of Washington. "The whole terminal is so packed you can barely walk."

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Watch raw video of weary American travelers stuck at London's Heathrow Airport.

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With all of Heathrow's hotels filled to capacity, Velez was one of some 500 people who slept in the chilly terminals overnight while waiting to rebook a flight home.

Zubair Qamar, 33, also heading to Washington, was lucky. He was given a hotel voucher after waiting for six hours Wednesday.

"I spent some of my vacation in a five-star hotel, which was not so bad," he said. "But I would have preferred to be back."

More than 600 flights have been canceled since Tuesday and holiday chaos loomed for many passengers after British Airways announced the cancellation of about a quarter of its flights.

The airline has already reserved rooms at the Holiday Inn Heathrow for stranded travelers, said hotel worker Habib Kopti.

Outside the airport, visibility reached a low of 377 feet, making runways nearly invisible to approaching aircraft, said Keith Fenwick, a spokesman for Britain's Meteorological office. Visibility lower than 3,280 feet is generally considered disruptive for flights. Although the fog was dissipating, forecasters warned it might build again Friday and Saturday.

"When we flew in last night, you couldn't see the ground," said Velez. "I've never seen anything like it before."

Eurostar reported a 15 percent spike in traffic as frustrated airline passengers boarded trains to Paris and Brussels.

"The cancellations will need to continue as long as the weather conditions prevail," Mark Bullock, managing director of BAA Heathrow, told the British Broadcasting Corp.

Flights at other London airports were relatively unaffected, with nine cancellations reported at Stansted and none at Gatwick.

In Denver, 4,700 people hunkered down overnight after all flights there were canceled — more than 1,000 of them Wednesday and Thursday morning alone. Airport officials said runways likely wouldn't open before midday Friday.

Must have been a slow news day to report a low lying cloud....