Hundreds of flights to and from the UK have been cancelled as Storm Eunice batters the country.
Aviation analytics firm Cirium said at least 436 flights were cancelled on Friday amid potentially record-breaking gusts of wind.
It came as more than 200,000 people tuned in to a YouTube channel livestreaming aircraft battling with high winds as they attempt to land at London’s Heathrow Airport.
Heathrow suffered the worst disruption, with a fifth of all flights cancelled.
This was followed by London City (16%) and Manchester (10%).
EasyJet said it has cancelled a number of flights from UK airports on Friday.
It said in a statement: “Due to strong winds impacting parts of the UK today, like other airlines we are experiencing some disruption to our flying programme and have been required to cancel a small number of flights to and from the UK.
“We are doing all possible to minimise the impact of the weather disruption for our customers and have notified those on cancelled flights in advance, with the option of transferring to an alternative flight free of charge or receiving a refund, as well as providing hotel accommodation and meals for customers who require them.
“We continue to advise all customers due to fly with us today to check the status of their flights on our Flight Tracker page for real-time information, and to allow extra time to travel to the airport due to the impact of the weather on local public transport services.
“While this is outside of our control, we would like to apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused by the weather.
“The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is always easyJet’s highest priority.”
Planes are struggling to land at airports due to high winds, with many being diverted or requiring several attempts before touching down.
Heathrow said on Twitter: “Storm Eunice is forecast to cause poor weather conditions across the UK and Europe today. We are working in close collaboration with our airport partners to minimise any disruption.
“Please continue to check your flight status with your airline before making your way to Heathrow.”
Several planes reached the skies above their arrival airport, but were forced to return to their starting points.
They include an easyJet flight from Bordeaux, France, to Gatwick, a British Airways flight from Edinburgh to Heathrow and a Lufthansa flight from Munich to Heathrow.
British Airways flight BA296 from the US city of Chicago was due to land at Heathrow but was diverted to Geneva, Switzerland.
A flight by the same airline from Venice, Italy, to Heathrow landed at Newcastle instead.
Read More
British Airways said: “Due to the extreme weather conditions across the UK and resulting restrictions on the number of aircraft that can take off and land each hour, we, like other airlines, are experiencing significant disruption.
“We’re operating as many flights as we can and putting on larger aircraft where possible.”
Big Jet TV, which regularly films livestreams from Heathrow, has captured several “go-arounds”, in which an aircraft trying to land on the runway aborts its attempt, instead flying back around the airport for another attempt.
