Big freeze could be coming to an end but impact expected to last until weekend

Passengers from Northern Ireland were among those affected by flight cancellations and delays at airports in Great Britain due to the weather while some deliveries in the lead up to Christmas have also been delayed.

Farming Life editor Ruth Rodgers was one of those stranded for more than 24 hours. Ruth flew out of Belfast International Airport to London on Saturday at 6am and was meant to return from Stansted at 8.10pm on Sunday. She was notified by Easyjet that her flight had been cancelled after midnight on Saturday.

She said: "It was a nightmare. By the time passengers were finally given confirmation that the delayed flight was cancelled it was too late to find a hotel nearby and then the early morning flights were snapped up leaving most passengers totally stranded.

"There were hundreds of people sleeping all over the terminal floor and struggling to find a plug to get phones charged so that they could find alternative travel arrangements online. Passengers were left to sort it out themselves and there wasn’t a lot of help on the ground from a flight company who had no staff on site until 5.30 or 6am.”

She arrived home at 11.30pm yesterday from Heathrow rather than Stansted as originally planned.

Easyjet said: “Airlines operating to and from the UK yesterday have been experiencing some disruption to their flying programmes due to adverse weather, including flight EZY267 from Stansted to Belfast which was cancelled as a result of the (snow) closure at Stansted.

“We did everything possible to minimise the disruption for our customers, including providing the option of a free transfer to an alternative flight or a refund as well as overnight hotel accommodation and meals where available. Customers will be reimbursed should they have sourced their own accommodation and other expenses including meals.

“The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is easyJet’s highest priority and while this is outside of our control, we would like to apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused as a result of the weather.”

The sub zero weather has been sustained enough to trigger cold weather payments in areas where the average temperature is, or is forecast to be, zero degrees centigrade or below over seven consecutive days.

It means that £25 will be automatically credited to people living in postcodes around Aldergrove, Castlederg and Thomastown and Katesbridge, where a record low for the year of minus nine degrees was recorded in the early hours of yesterday.

A yellow warning for ice is in place in the north and east of Province until midday tomorrow (Wednesday) with another deep frost forecast tonight with possible lows of minus six.

Tomorrow is set to be another very cold and mainly dry day, with a few snow showers possible in northerly areas. Snow showers remain a possibility on Thursday and Friday.

The Met Office has said that the weekend will see milder and wetter weather sweeping in to create a temporary reprieve.