Officials from Stansted say the airport is operating normally as it bids to ease the load on snow-bound Heathrow.

An airport spokeswoman said a number of airlines had laid on extra flights and the airport was handling re-directed Heathrow flights – with airport transfers possible between the two.

The Stansted spokeswoman added that bosses had shut the main runway for a “short period” on Saturday while a number of flights were cancelled on Sunday.

“We are operating normally – and some airlines have laid on extra flights,” she added. “We have no more snow forecast.”

The news comes as Heathrow prepares to face an inquiry into the way stranded passengers were treated over the weekend.

Transport secretary Philip Hammond said airports had been hit by extreme weather conditions and he did not want to “distract” management attention from efforts to clear a “huge” backlog of flights by carrying out investigations now into what happened over the last few days.

However he said that once the problems were over, there had to be a “discussion” about what went wrong – including how passengers were treated once flights were disrupted.

He told BBC Breakfast: “Once we have got through the problem, once we have got things moving again, then we will have to have that discussion and find out exactly what went wrong and, most importantly, what went wrong in handling passengers who were stranded.”

Copyright Press Association 2010

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