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Second day of air travel chaos
 Passengers at Heathrow faced long delays on Thursday. UK CONTACT NUMBERSRELATEDYOUR E-MAIL ALERTSLONDON, England (CNN) -- Air passengers across Europe faced a second day of delays on Friday, though the situation had eased from the previous day when London's Heathrow Airport was closed to all incoming flights as police said they had disrupted a major terrorist plot. But airlines were getting away far more flights than the previous day as passengers absorbed the fact that they were not allowed to board flights carrying hand luggage, CNN's Adrian Finighan reported. All the airlines were asking passengers to check their Web sites for full details.(Airline Web sites) British Airways said it expected to operate all long-haul flights from London Heathrow and London Gatwick with the exception of some flights to the U.S., which again would be affected. BA's cancellations included six flights from Heathrow to the U.S., including three to New York, and one each to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington DC. The airline said that 60 percent of its short-haul and domestic services to and from London Heathrow were expected to operate as normal. There were cancellations to Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh which was likely to affect passengers traveling to the Edinburgh Festival, CNN's Finighan reported from Heathrow. A BA spokesman said: "There will still be delays today but we are pretty confident of getting the majority of our flights away today." Air France-KLM was advising all passengers traveling to and from the U.S. to arrive at the airport early. The airline made no indication of plans to cancel flights. Lufthansa said it was resuming all its flights to and from Heathrow. The low-fare airlines, which carry thousands of people off on summer holidays, were among the worst hit. EasyJet, which axed around 300 flights the previous day, cancelled 112 flights and its budget airline rival Ryanair scrapped more than 30 flights to and from Stansted Airport in Essex. EasyJet decided to cancel flights to destinations that passengers could, at least, get to by train, the UK's Press Association reported. Consequently, the airline scrapped its services from Luton, Stansted and Gatwick to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness and Newcastle as well as to Paris, Amsterdam and Geneva. Spokesman Toby Nicol told PA: "We could have been heroic and tried to run a full service and fallen flat on our faces. Instead we have been realistic and scrapped those services to which passengers can get to by train." He added: "It's been much better today. Airports have had 24 hours to get used to the new systems and passengers have been very good about arriving without hand luggage." CNN's Financial Editor Todd Benjamin, on his way to Las Vegas from London's Gatwick Airport, reported queues had eased and that the situation at the airport was under control. He said that most travelers knew they had to travel "quite lean" and had come prepared with only their travel documents to carry onto the plane. But his flight had been delayed for six hours by the knock-on effect of flight delays, he said. "It is a small price to pay for safety," he said. On Thursday night in a statement, the British Airports Authority, BAA, which owns Heathrow, said the airport was still experiencing "severe disruption" to its operation, but the situation was "very slowly beginning to ease." "It is our intention to return to as normal operational conditions as possible within the new restrictions tomorrow," BAA Managing Director Tony Douglas said. On Thursday afternoon British Airways said all short haul flights in and out of Heathrow -- the world's busiest international airport -- had been canceled for the rest of the day and advised passengers who did not need to travel Friday to stay away from the airport. The UK's threat warning level was raised to "critical" -- meaning "an attack is expected imminently" -- after police said they had arrested 21 people in connection with a terrorist plot to blow up aircraft flying to the U.S. (Full story) 
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