British airline passengers face further travel chaos this weekend after airports were hit by more flight delays and cancellations yesterday.
British Airways, which cancelled up to 100 flights yesterday, said it would take "a few more days" before its operations returned to normal after the disruption caused by the transatlantic bomb scare.
The low-cost carrier easyJet scrapped 100 flights, including almost all domestic departures from London Stansted, London Gatwick and London Luton, as it suffered severe operational problems for the second day running.
A spokesman for BAA, owner of London Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports, urged passengers to arrive early for check-in but warned that delays and cancellations were still likely during the weekend.
Passengers should not bring hand luggage and should carry any items allowed on flights in clear plastic bags, he added.
"Allow extra time to get to the airport and check with your airline before you leave the house because there will be delays and cancellations. It is reasonable to expect that this will remain the case for the foreseeable future."
The spokesman said that delays at airports in the southeast of England were inevitable because they were already operating at full-stretch and had no capacity for accommodating delayed flights. "There is only so much that the system can absorb."
Heathrow airport again bore the brunt of the disruption yesterday. BAA reported shorter queues and a "busy but calm" atmosphere, but passengers going through terminal one were still being held in an overspill marquee outside the airport's busiest building yesterday.
There were 96 cancellations at Heathrow yesterday, against 652 for the whole of Thursday, when almost 200,000 passengers were stranded at the airport.