London - Chaos after the opening of London Heathrow's ill- fated Terminal 5 stretched into the 12th day as bad weather forced British Airways on Sunday again to cancel dozens of flights.

Owing to heavy snowfalls paralyzing Europe's largest airport, another 50 flights were cancelled, British Airways said, increasing the total of cancelled flights during the weekend to 130.

Two runways were closed on Sunday morning for about half an hour because of ice forming on them, airport operator BAA said.

On Saturday, software problems shut down Terminal 5's automated baggage handling system. Baggage had to be sorted by hand, leading to delays and flight cancellations.

BAA said it had worked through the night to solve the problem, which passengers termed another "PR-disaster."

British Airways had expected to have overcome the teething problems of the 8-billion-dollar terminal by Saturday.

Terminal 5's baggage handling system was key to the problems marring the terminal. Since its opening on March 27 more than 20,000 pieces of luggage were lost and hundreds of flights cancelled.

The disastrous start of T5 operations cost the company up to now more than 16 million pounds (32 million dollars), British Airways said.

London's Gatwick airport was also forced to cancel 40 flights because of the snow. (dpa)