Snow caused chaos for air passengers on Sunday, with flights diverted, delayed and cancelled at Heathrow.

While roads were closed and power supplies affected around the country, the disruption at Britain's main airport was blamed on planes having to be de-iced before take-off, resulting in a lack of 'parking space' for incoming flights.

At the west London airport, passengers complained of being trapped on a British Airways plane on the ground for more than four hours with no information from the airline.

Four British Airways flights headed for Heathrow had to be diverted to Newcastle, 300 miles away. The deicing process is believed to have affected both outgoing and incoming flights, with planes not able to land because other aircraft were still in the stands.

British Airways was inundated with messages from unhappy customers on social media, who complained of long waits on the tarmac and no response on their customer service phone line.