January 07, 2009	Wednesday	Muharram 09, 1430

PARIS, Jan 6: Air traffic limped back to normal on Tuesday at Paris’ main international airport, where thousands of passengers were stranded overnight after heavy snow cancelled scores of flights, officials said.

Air France was forced to cancel 150 of its 400 scheduled flights out of Roissy on Monday due to heavy snowfall.

“It did not snow last night. The runways are clear and have been de-iced.

Traffic is returning to normal,” said an official at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport north of the capital.

Some 3,000 passengers were put up in hotels nearby, but another 2,000 were forced to spend a chilly night in the airport terminal, where they were handed out meal trays and blankets, airport officials said.

Scheduled flights were able to take off and land normally on Tuesday, but were still facing delays due to take-off preparations to remove ice from aircrafts.

Extra flights were to be added throughout the day to help get stranded passengers to their destinations, the official said.

Traffic at Paris’ second airport Orly was operating normally.

Northern, central and western France were hit by snow and freezing rain Monday, causing mayhem on roads across the country and causing national power consumption to hit an all-time peak.

Weather services are forecasting temperatures will plunge to between minus five and minus 10 Celsius, with the cold snap set to last until the middle of the month.—AFP