- Title: FRANCE: Air France tells stranded passengers: "totally sorry"
- Date: 25th December 2010
- Summary: ORLY, FRANCE (DECEMBER 2, 2010) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF AIR FRANCE AIR CRAFTS BEING DE-ICED
- Embargoed: 9th January 2011 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: France, France
- Country: France
- Topics: Weather,Transport
- Reuters ID: LVAA0L2J1BGA4LRZQYJTJQ6L0WIX
- Story Text: The thousands of passengers stuck in Charles de Gaulle on Friday (December 24) could well spend Christmas in the airport if canceled flights are not cleared in the coming hours.
The cancellations were partly due to the lack of glycol, a de-icing product used on aircraft before take-off.
Around 5,000 passengers were stranded overnight at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport because of the snow and cold weather.
Two thousand of them had to sleep rough in the various terminals at Charles de Gaulle, the luckiest ones having been provided camp beds.
The head of Air France operations, Michel Emeyriat, was humbled.
"I am totally sorry, I am totally sorry to the passengers, to the Air France staff, for all the conflicts created by this and I can assure you that I hadn't seen this in the past ten years. But I can tell you that we are doing everything we can, there's nothing I can add to this," said Emeyriat, Air France's head of operations at Roissy airport.
At lunch time on Friday, 35 percent of flights leaving from Charles de Gaulle were canceled.
Severe travel disruption has affected a large area of northern Europe with major airports like London Heathrow and Frankfurt among the worst hit. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
