TRAVELLERS saw their holiday plans severely disrupted after fog brought services at Liverpool John Lennon airport to a standstill yesterday.

A total of 17 flights were either diverted to other airports or scrapped altogether, with passengers facing delays of up to several hours.

An airport spokesman said that early morning flights were able to leave on schedule, but that, as heavy fog descended, visibility on the runway was reduced to about 300m.

Among the routes to be hit were those between Liverpool and Geneva, Amsterdam, Nice, and Belfast.

JLA spokesman Robin Tudor said: “The density of the fog impacted on arriving aircraft and led to seven flights being diverted to other airports, mainly East Midlands and Doncaster.

“A total of 10 flights were cancelled from Liverpool, and other flights were delayed.

“It was the sheer density of the fog which caused the problem. This is a busy time of year with people either coming back from a Christmas break, or going away for the New Year, and the flights will have been fairly full.

“I would estimate that between 1,500 and 2,000 passengers would have been on the affected flights.

“The good news is that we re-opened and were able to accept flights from 2.30pm onwards, but there would have been a knock-on effect right across the rest of the day as airlines tried to catch up.”