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		</div><p><a href="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/travel-misery-to-blight-christmas.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full" title="Passengers wait in Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport as winter weather continued to cause transport problems" src="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/min-travel-misery-to-blight-christmas.jpg" alt="Passengers wait in Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport as winter weather continued to cause transport problems"/></a></p>
<p>Travel misery is expected continue to blight the UK in the run up to Christmas, with Heathrow&#8217;s woes looking far from over.</p>
<p>Thousands of travellers trying to leave or return to the UK experienced another day of long queues and grim conditions at airports as the snow and ice wreaked havoc.</p>
<p>Transport minister Philip Hammond has relaxed the rules on night flights in a bid to ease the passenger backlog at the west London airport &#8211; following airport operator BAA&#8217;s confirmation that Heathrow&#8217;s second runway will remain closed on Tuesday.</p>
<p>The big freeze has not only affected those trying to leave the UK by air, with some Eurostar passengers having to queue for more than seven hours to board a train at St Pancras. The UK&#8217;s roads and rail network has also been badly hit.</p>
<p>Giving a statement to the Commons, Mr Hammond said disruption was &#8220;inevitable&#8221; given the severity of the weather conditions and that the transport system would &#8220;struggle to recover&#8221; in the days leading up to Christmas with more poor weather expected.</p>
<p>He said the strategic road network and rail network have performed &#8220;broadly satisfactorily&#8221;, but he appeared to take a swipe at the reaction of BAA by saying: &#8220;The experience at airports, and Heathrow in particular, has however been different.&#8221;</p>
<p>Sunday&#8217;s whole-day closure at Heathrow and continued reduced capacity presents &#8220;a very real challenge from which the system will struggle to recover quickly&#8221; Mr Hammond said.</p>
<p>BAA said that &#8220;significant cancellations&#8221; would extend into at least Wednesday, with many areas of the airfield &#8220;not be usable until Wednesday morning at the earliest&#8221;, and told passengers to keep away from full terminals unless they knew for sure their flight was operating.</p>
<p>Further disruption is likely to occur &#8220;through this week&#8221;, Mr Hammond told MPs, adding: &#8220;This is particularly stressful just a few days ahead of the Christmas break.&#8221;</p>
<p>The transport minister said he understood the &#8220;frustration&#8221; of those trying to get away or back home to enjoy Christmas with their families. BAA has already announced it is unable to accept any more people in the &#8220;extremely congested&#8221; Terminals 1 and 3 and warned that a reduced flying schedule due to commence at 6am on Wednesday would mean that a &#8220;maximum one third of flights are likely to operate during this period&#8221;.</p>
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