When I woke up this morning to the news of record snow falls in London, I instinctively smelt trouble ahead. I was supposed to fly tomorrow evening to London en route to Prague. But discovering that Heathrow airport was closed, I realised that this would almost certainly effect my flight. Sure enough, when I went online, all transatlantic flights into London were already cancelled for tomorrow. And when I called American Airlines, I was told that there would be no chance of my flying to London until at least Wednesday at the earliest.
Britain is unprepared for such unprecedented amounts of snow and Heathrow just doesn't have the necessary equipment to cope. The consequence is that one of the world's busiest airports with hundreds of flights a day just ground to a halt. With scenes of anxious travellers sleeping on the floor at Heathrow and other airports, I felt fortunate that I could at least extend my booking at the comfortable DoubleTree hotel on Lexington Avenue, where I will wait until a flight becomes available. There are worse places to be stranded that Manhattan.
Grandpa Jonathan
New York, USA
