Portugal: After night of chaos, Lisbon airport traffic normalising

Thousands of angry passengers who were stranded in Lisbon's international airport by a refuelling system failure Wednesday and had to sleep on the floor and luggage belts were finally able to travel Thursday. Portugal's ANA airport management company said the refuelling system resumed normal operation soon after midnight and the civil aviation authority allowed planes to take off during the night to send the travellers on their way after 64 flight cancellations and 322 delays. The airport timetable still showed delays on most flights in early afternoon Thursday, but most did not exceed an hour and ANA said the airport had resumed normal operations. During the night, passengers who had boarded one flight refused to leave the plane, after which the crew turned on the heating to force them out and called the police. <br/>