TORONTO - Heavy snow and a buildup of ice have shut down many European airport runways, causing travel headaches for Canadians looking to cross the Atlantic.

London's Heathrow Airport stopped accepting arrivals and was allowing few departures on Sunday, forcing the cancellation of several flights to and from Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

Paris' Charles de Gaulle scrapped about 40 per cent of its flights, which led to the cancellation of flights in Toronto and Montreal as well.

Air Canada has warned customers flying to and from London and Paris to expect delays and cancellations up until Monday. The airline also urged customers to avoid all non-essential travel.

Rishi Patel is just one among a number of Canadians stranded in London due to the harsh weather.

"It's extremely frustrating, I just want to come home," said the 18-year-old Toronto resident who studies medicine in the U.K.

Patel was supposed to fly home Saturday afternoon. After waiting at the crowded airport for four hours, he was told his delayed Air Canada flight to Toronto had been cancelled due to the bad weather. A flight to Montreal was cancelled at the same time.

"It was just chaos," he said of the disgruntled passengers who grew more frustrated as they were shuttled from one area to another to make alternative arrangements.

An Air Canada employee told Patel he could get on a Sunday flight, which was later cancelled as well.

After spending three hours on the phone trying to rebook his flight, and having his parents in Canada frantically trying to find him a way home, Patel is now scheduled to fly out Monday, but his family had to buy him a first class ticket to get him a seat.

"It's getting to the point where it's just so ridiculous, you just don't know what to do," said Patel, who complained about a lack of centralized information at the airport.

Patel, who grew up in Toronto, says while Saturday brought heavy snow in London, Sunday's weather seemed mild compared to Canadian winters.

"As a Canadian I've seen so much more efficient removal of snow."

Meanwhile, Manish Oza, another Canadian stuck in London, doesn't have a flight home until Thursday.

"It's ages," said the 19-year-old university student who was supposed to fly to Toronto Saturday. "It's just annoying."

Oza said the confusion at the airport was compounded Saturday when mass cancellations saw harried staff turn passengers away at the terminal doors.

"It was pretty chaotic," he told The Canadian Press. "There was hundreds of people lining up... some people were still trying to get in trying to figure out what was happening."

Oza considers himself lucky because he has relatives in the city he can stay with, but for others, the extended delays have wrecked havoc on holiday plans.

Stranded passengers have set up camp on airport floors, some taking advantage of makeshift dormitories provided. Hallways were strewn with weary travellers taking a snooze, some wrapped in foil blankets to keep warm.

Heathrow has said it is "extremely sorry" for the disruption to travel plans and explained that Sunday's cancellations were due to a significant build up of ice on parking stands around planes, which required parts of the airfield to remain closed.

Meanwhile, Air Canada is waiving all change and cancellation fees for those affected. The airline is also encouraging travellers to use its online rebooking tool to make alternative travel plans, before arriving at the airport.

"Unfortunately, we do not anticipate resuming normal services at Heathrow for at least 48 hours," airline Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer Duncan Dee said in a statement released Sunday morning.

Dee also warned travellers to brace for further delays even after runways open due to a "tremendous backlog" caused by the snowy situation in Heathrow over the past two days.

Rail services and road travellers in Europe also continued to face disruption as a result of the weather. Icy conditions in Britain caused three deaths on Saturday, police said. A teenage girl was killed in a sledding accident, while a mother and her 10-year-old son died in a traffic crash.

In northern France, TGV fast trains were running slower than usual, tacking about 20 minutes on to each journey. Eurostar trains to Britain and Thalys trains to Belgium and the Netherlands were also affected.

In Italy, Florence's airport remained closed Sunday morning due to the snow and ice storms that blanketed Tuscany.

At Frankfurt airport, Germany's biggest, more than 500 flights were cancelled Sunday out of a planned total of 1,330 departures and arrivals. Some passengers have been waiting for their flights since Friday.

In Amsterdam, the airport's snow plow teams had cleared three runways, and planes were arriving and leaving. However, because of problems at other European airports some 30 flights had been cancelled by late morning.

-- with files from the Associated Press