Hundreds of passengers whose travel plans were thrown into chaos by severe weather conditions in the UK finally left Bahrain yesterday.

Two Gulf Air flights touched down at London's Heathrow airport for the first time since Saturday.

The planes, carrying up to 400 passengers, were among the few flights allowed into the British capital as the weather eased.

Snow and freezing temperatures had caused the closure of the airport with barely any flights landing or taking off for the last two days.

However, British Airways cancelled its flight from Bahrain to London yesterday, along with Etihad Airways, Emirates and Qatar Airways from Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha respectively.

Sources said those carriers would likely be carrying passengers from Bahrain, bound for the UK.

Gulf Air officials said one of its flights from London to Bahrain had arrived in Bahrain last night.

'Operations are still pretty much disrupted but some sense of normalcy is returning with the weather easing somewhat,' said an airline spokesman.

'We are keeping a tab on the weather and will operate flights from Bahrain as we get the go-ahead from London.'

Up to 1,000 travellers to and from Bahrain on several airlines, including around half of them on Gulf Air, earlier had to alter their travel plans following a spell of severe weather. All airlines have set up travel advisories on their websites urging people not to travel to the airport unless they had confirmed bookings and after they had made sure flights were departing.

They are also offering passengers alternative bookings and full refunds on cancelled tickets.

British Airways warned Heathrow would be operating at a 'significantly reduced capacity for several days' - threatening to leave more than 100,000 Britons stranded overseas for Christmas.

Meanwhile, passengers affected by heavy snowfall across Europe finally touched down on Bahraini soil last night after several days of delays.

Gulf Air's first successful flight from London Heathrow to Bahrain International Airport in two days also landed at around midnight. Among those on board were many students and family members returning home to Bahrain for the Christmas holidays.

Cardiff University student Mark Burnell had been due to depart London for Bahrain on Saturday, but heavy snowfall across the UK and the subsequent grounding of most flights meant he joined hundreds of other travellers forced to take refuge in the terminal building.

Speaking before his departure yesterday, he was clearly frustrated by the situation.

'I've just been walking around and trying to get some sleep on the floor when I can,' he told our sister newspaper Gulf Daily News (GDN).

'You can't even get proper sleep though because you're afraid you might miss an announcement or something. Everyone's in the same boat and there are so many people here.

'They haven't really told us anything about what's happening or given us any explanations or reasons for whatever's going on. 'One person was telling us one thing and then someone else was telling us something totally different. I'm fed up and tired now and I just want to get home.'-TradeArabia News Service