Heathrow passengers 'waiting for a miracle'.
When someone's trying to get back home to be with their family for Christmas, they won't give up hope easily.
"I will fly today," declared Claire Whittle-Long as the Tube brought her into Heathrow Airport on Monday morning. "But I said that for the last two days," she added, the determination in her voice faltering ever so slightly.
The 24-year-old South African nanny proudly offered to show her survival blanket, a 'badge of honour' from an overnight stay at the airport on Saturday that she was desperately hoping would not be needed again.
Others held similar hopes.
"I have a brand new granddaughter that I want to hold," said Colin Turner, who has been waiting at Heathrow since Saturday morning for his flight home to Dallas, Texas.
Now inadvertently able to compare the relative comfort of terminals 3 and 5 for an overnight stay, the 55-year-old army contractor declared Terminal 5's "accommodation... a lot better"
He was one of a few passengers who had been given an inches-high plastic bed to sleep on inside the airport's 21st Century gateway.
Terminal 3, where Mr Turner spent Saturday and most of Sunday, "was very, very overcrowded," he said.
"It felt very unsafe. There was probably in the neighbourhood of five to six thousand congregated in that terminal. We just felt like cattle having to stand there, and couldn't go anywhere."
Airport operator BAA asked passengers not to come to the airport on Monday unless their flight had been confirmed, saying there were more people inside the terminal buildings than it could safely handle.
But with about a million passengers due to pass through Heathrow in the week before Christmas, they continued to wheel their suitcases up in droves.
As family groups gathered in urgent conference around baggage trolleys, and solo travellers updated loved ones by mobile phone, the languages of the world could be heard.
But wherever somebody was from, and wherever they were trying to fly to, the tone of voice was the same: weary and bewildered, despondent and frustrated.'All kinds of rumours' Many felt that a lack of information from the airport and the airlines makes the experience much worse.
"Any news at this point would be good news," said Alex Andrew, 20, from St Louis, Missouri.
He was among a group of about 50 US students who, after studying at a college in Lincolnshire for a term, decided to spend a few days visiting Italy before their return home.
"It was beautiful, wonderful," he said. "Then we came back expecting to be able to get home and all this happened. It's upsetting."
Stranded at the airport since the early hours of Saturday morning, the group have been told the earliest flight they can be re-booked on departs on Christmas Eve.
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