Heavy
Snow has shut runways at major
UK airports and brought travel disruption to commuters as temperatures plunged across the country.
Manchester Airport has temporarily shut its runways to clear snow, the airport said on Twitter. Liverpool Airport also closed its runway for nearly four hours while heavy snow was cleared from the runway. It reopened at 9:50 a.m. (4:50 a.m. ET).
Both airports advised people to check the status of their flight before traveling.
Frustrated passengers tweeted they have been stuck at the airports or on planes since early morning.
Gary Coakley-Harding, a 49-year-old account manager for a pharmaceutical company, told CNN that he has been stuck on a Frankfurt-bound Lufthansa flight in Manchester, unable to get off, for more than four hours.
"The flight was scheduled at 6.30 a.m.," he said. "People were only given a five-minute window to get off the plane. Not allowed back on if you have. Some people got off because they wouldn't have made connections in Frankfurt."
Weather warnings for snow and ice have been issued for areas around England, and police and road authorities have warned of dangerous driving conditions in the Midlands and north of the country.
Greater Manchester police have urged drivers to be careful after reports of multiple collisions, and the UK's national weather service, the Met Office, issued a yellow warning for ice and snow covering much of the UK on Wednesday.
Parts of France are also under a weather warning after heavy snow fall, Météo France, the French national meteorological service, warned.