Air Transport

Flight schedules from UK airports were slowly returning to normal this morning, but severe hand baggage restrictions remain in place, delaying check-in procedures.

British Airways, the most severely affected carrier, is estimating that 60% of its scheduled services from Heathrow will fly today and around 80% of its services from other airports. Specific flights cancelled include services to San Francisco, New York John F Kennedy, Washington Dulles and Los Angeles international airports. Additionally, UK domestic flights have been affected as well as several short-haul European route such as Brussels and Zurich.

Virgin Atlantic says it operated all of its flight schedule yesterday and plans to operate its full schedule of 20 flights departing from Heathrow, six from London Gatwick and two from Manchester. BMI is also reporting a normal service today.

However, among the low-cost carriers, Ryanair has cancelled around 30 services today from Stansted to points in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. Easyjet has cancelled only selected UK domestic services. FlyBe has cancelled no flights today.

All carriers are expecting delays due to the increased hand baggage scrutiny. Transatlantic flighst are expected to depart around one hour later than scheduled due to the secondary security screening for flights to the USA.