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14 hours ago
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Heavy fog that severely limits visibility has led to further cancellations and delays of dozens of flights at Heathrow and Gatwick, and is forecast to persist through the weekend.
The murky weather has shrouded much of the country over the past few days and the Met Office warned that thick fog patches could reduce visibility to just 100 metres.
The UK’s main air traffic control provider, Nats, said some UK airports continued to be affected by “widespread” fog and that air restrictions would remain in places with low visibility.
A spokesperson added: “Restrictions of this sort are only ever applied to maintain safety. We continue to monitor the situation and have a Met Office expert embedded within our operation to ensure we have the latest available information.”
The BBC reported that 20 flights at Heathrow had been cancelled on Saturday morning, with another 29 delayed. At Gatwick, 26 were delayed and one cancelled. Flights at Stansted airport were also affected by the weather conditions, while live departure boards showed delays at Luton and Manchester airports, after a series of cancellations on Friday.
The Met Office has not yet issued warnings for fog but said it would monitor the situation. Liam Eslick, a meteorologist with the national weather service, said: “It’s that time of year when people are travelling around the country a lot and there are a lot of people on the roads.
“There is a lot of fog covering much of England, mainly the south-east and central England, but the rest of the country is seeing quite a bit of thick fog too … It will be pretty murky on Saturday morning and there will still be fog patches that will take a little longer to clear.”
On Friday, dozens of flights from airports across the UK were cancelled and hundreds delayed, according to the flight-tracking website Flightradar24.
A spokesperson for Gatwick airport, in West Sussex, confirmed that air traffic restrictions remained in place on Saturday. “Some flights may be delayed throughout the day,” they said. “London Gatwick apologises for any inconvenience. Passengers should contact their airline for further information.”
Kiera Quayle, from Colchester, Essex, was due to fly from the Isle of Man airport to Gatwick on Friday evening with her husband after visiting his family, but their flight was delayed by three hours before being cancelled at about 10pm, with their next available journey on Sunday.
“Our five days has turned to seven, it looks like,” Quayle told PA Media. “It’s frustrating and stressful but I overheard a few families who are now missing holidays and work who have it worse at this point.”
Irem, 36, said her flight from Cologne, Germany, to Manchester airport had been delayed by more than six hours on Friday because of fog in the north of England. “I suppose we’re lucky we’re still going to see [her husband’s family in north Wales] tomorrow,” she told the BBC.
One flight from Istanbul to Gatwick was delayed by 10 hours, the flight status website Cirium showed. “Some passengers got hotel, some were stranded at airports because of confusion,” Dr Shama Junejo said on X.
The Met Office has advised motorists to go steady when they are driving in fog. Lingering low cloud should start to clear on Sunday, Eslick said, with winds forecast to “pick up and turn over these cloudy and murky conditions to help clear the fog”.
The recent murky conditions are less likely to return in the last couple of days of the year but people should not hold out hope for much winter sunshine. Eslick said: “It looks like it won’t be as dank and horrible [early next week] but it will still be wet and windy across much of the country.”
In Scotland, the first minister, John Swinney, urged people to “pay close attention” to weather warnings in place over the Hogmanay period, with heavy rain and snow potentially causing significant disruption in the buildup to the new year.
