Freeze Strands Air Passengers in Paris

PARIS—French aviation authorities canceled about a third of the flights into and out of Paris's main airport Friday because of freezing conditions, stranding hundreds of passengers a day before Christmas.

While travel in Britain was improving after days of headaches, new snowfall stranded travelers in Ireland, Denmark and Brussels.

Passengers at Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport were asked to leave a section of a major terminal for security reasons because of large amounts of snow on the roof, said Bernard Cathelain, deputy director of the Paris airport authority ADP.

The terminal's roof partly collapsed in 2004 shortly after the building was put into service, killing four passengers and injuring six others. The precautionary evacuation was decided while emergency workers cleared snow from the roof.

Around five thousands travelers are stranded at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, as winter weather continues to disrupt flights. Video courtesy of Reuters.

The French Civil Aviation Authority scaled back an earlier request to airlines to only cancel 35%, rather than half of their flights.

Eric Heraud, a spokesman for the General Direction of Civilian Aviation, said Charles de Gaulle airport said the cancellations are necessary because the airport is running low on reserves of ethylene glycol, the liquid used to de-ice planes.

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Passengers wait for their flights in a terminal after sleeping a night at the Charles-de-Gaulle airport near Paris.

The problem has been compounded by a strike at the main plant that makes de-icing fluid in France, Transportation Minister Thierry Mariani said in a radio interview with France Inter.

A supply of deicing fluid arrived from the U.S. Friday.

Airlines canceled 400 of 1,160 flights due to land or take off from Charles de Gaulle, Mr. Heraud said.

Hundreds of passengers had already spent the night at the airport after some 50 flights were canceled Thursday evening, said Elise Hermant, a spokeswoman for Aeroports de Paris, the state-controlled airport operator.

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The airport had only just cleared the backlog from flight delays caused by bad weather earlier in the week.

Scores of trains were also late or canceled in France Friday morning. But the situation at Orly, the other big airport in Paris, was described as normal.

Airlines are supposed to reimburse stranded passengers or to reschedule flights and offer lodging, but the hotel capacity around the airport is limited and "some airlines don't play the game," Mr. Heraud said.

Shortages of deicing fluid hit airports in Ireland and Belgium as well, leading to a domino effect of delays around the continent.

Surprise snow threw Ireland's main Dublin airport into chaos with some 40,000 travelers stranded or delayed. Irish Ferries added extra crossings between Britain and Ireland.

"We have no spare capacity. We've run out of aircraft, deicing fluid or crews at various locations," said Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary.

In Brussels, the Red Cross was bringing in hundreds of cots for passengers spending the night at the airport. Airport spokesman Jan Van der Cruysse said they expected that several hundred passengers would remain stranded overnight.

In Britain, major airports said services were operating largely as normal as the country thawed out from days of frosty weather. However, Christmas travelers were contending with reduced rail services and icy roads. About a quarter of services were canceled on some rail routes.

In Germany, Duesseldorf airport closed for several hours Friday morning because of new snowfall, with some 65 flights canceled.

In Denmark, the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm remains the worst hit by the snow. Some 400 passengers on two ferries to the island spent the night on the ferries. On Friday, the passengers were able to reach the port city of Roenne, where they were lodged in military barracks and a sports facility.

—Associated Press contributed to this article.

Write to Elena Berton at elena.berton@dowjones.com

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