British arrest 21 in airline bomb plot
(AP)
Updated: 2006-08-10 21:18
Hannah Pillinger, 24, seemed less concerned by the announcement. "Eight hours
without an iPod, that's the most inconvenient thing," she said, waiting at the
Manchester airport.
Most European carriers canceled flights to Heathrow because of the massive
delays created after authorities enforced strict new regulations banning most
hand baggage.
Tony Douglas, Heathrow's managing director, said the airport hoped to resume
normal operations Friday, but passengers would still face delays and a ban on
cabin baggage "for the foreseeable future."
"At this point in time it is unclear how long these restrictions will remain
in place," he said.
Heathrow's block on incoming traffic applied to flights of three hours or
less, affecting most of the incoming traffic from Europe, an airport spokesman
said on condition of anonymity in line with airport policy.
Officials at Frankfurt's airport, Europe's second-busiest, Schiphol in
Amsterdam and Charles De Gaulle in Paris said Heathrow-bound planes could
instead land at their airports if they needed to.
London's Heathrow airport was the departure point for a devastating terrorist
attack on a Pan Am airplane on Dec. 21, 1988. The blast over Lockerbie,
Scotland, killed all 259 people aboard Pan Am Flight 103 and 11 people on the
ground.
The explosive was hidden in a portable radio secreted in checked
baggage.
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