Airports race to clear Christmas backlog

THE race was on at snowbound European airports yesterday to clear the backlog of stranded passengers in time for Christmas as weather conditions eased slightly.

Thousands of weary passengers woke up in airport terminals around the continent, where stranded travellers have been bedding down since Friday, still in the hope of making it to their destination before Christmas Day on Saturday.

In London, Paris and Frankfurt, the continent’s busiest airports were running a slimmed-down schedule in a bid to get stranded passengers on the move.