Flights in London's Heathrow Airport are also gradually returning to normal, though weather forecasters say more snow is on the way. But the airport faces criticism over the flight disruptions that have been costly for airlines, and the country.

 

Passenger's at Britain's Heathrow Airport awake from a bad night's sleep but slightly better news.

Flights are returning to normal as the recent unusual deluge of snow and ice melts from the runways.

But many passengers have had to put up with a whole series of delays.

A passenger said, "Yeah - basically we were supposed to be on the flight to Tokyo with Virgin on Saturday. That got canceled, so we spent our first night in Heathrow on Saturday. Then subsequently booked on the Monday for a flight to Tokyo, which again got canceled. Today we were hoping to get to Shanghai, got canceled, tomorrow San Francisco, got canceled. So we will wait and see tomorrow, and see if we can actually get on a flight to New Zealand, eventually, for Christmas."

Criticism is mounting at the way Heathrow - the world's busiest airport - dealt with the weather crisis - which lefts thousands of airline passengers huddled in tents as the airport ground to a halt.

And now analysts have estimated that the costs of the four days of disruption to British Airways could be up to 40 million pounds.

BA operates more than five hundred flights a day from Heathrow but that has been cut to around a third since Saturday.

And the weather is thought to have cost the UK's economy as a whole around 1.5 billion pounds due to lost production, travel chaos and lost High Street sales.

Forecasters say a thaw is unlikely in the coming days.