Weather chaos: Heathrow can't cope in snow, admits owner If we had the same conditions again we would probably take the same pre-emptive action and cancel 30 per cent of our flights. Given that we are running at more than 99 per cent capacity it is the only way to get slack in the system. However it is understood that there were some glitches which led to the cancellation of 133 extra flights, over and above the 380 which were scrapped as part of the contingency plan. In some cases co-ordination between the Heathrow's snow clearance teams needed to make stands useable and the airline's own plane de-icing squads was poor. Heathrow was also hampered by an informal agreement designed to protect people living in Cranford with restricts take offs to the east from the Northern Runway. Even though the agreement is suspended in times of extreme weather, the runway lacks the infrastructure to cope with a large number of easterly departures. With the airport having to alternate runways while snow was cleared from the tarmac, this in turn added to the delays. Downing Street said that the decision to cut large numbers of flights at Heathrow over the weekend had prevented the lengthy queues seen during snowy weather last winter. "BAA and Heathrow had to make some judgments on the basis of the best information at the time, and they decided to cancel some flights," said Prime Minister David Cameron's official spokesman. Part of the reason for this is that last time we had problems with snow, we had significant queues and problems in airport terminals because people were turning up for flights that then didn't run. One of the recommendations from the inquiry that followed that experience was that airlines and airports needed to make those judgments slightly earlier to avoid that kind of disruption. That's what happened here. One noticeable thing at the weekend was that we didn't see those very long queues snaking out of the airports, because of the decisions that had been made. Asked why the UK appeared to be less well-prepared for snow than Scandinavian countries which have to deal with much more harsh conditions, the spokesman said: "They obviously have to prepare in a different way because their climate is different to ours. We have to make judgments about how much money to invest in mitigation, given the kind of conditions we experience in this country. Britain is facing a month of snow, ice and freezing temperatures. Forecasters have warned the biting temperatures, snow showers and overnight frosts could last until the end of February as the country returned to work amid expected school closures. Parts of the UK woke up to lying snow of up to five inches (14cm) this morning while the coldest temperature of -8.6C (16.5F) was recorded overnight in Church Fenton in North Yorkshire. The nose cone of an aircraft at Humberside Airport, in Lincolnshire Although the bad weather caught airport operators unaware in 2010, the Met Office had predicted the weekend snowfall days in advance.