Heathrow protesters breach perimeter, cause flight back-ups

Fliers faced delays Monday at London's Heathrow airport after climate change activists breached the airport's perimeter fence and launched a protest on one of the airfield's runways, The Associated Press reports.

About a dozen activists from a group called Plane Stupid made it onto the airport grounds Monday morning at about at 3:30 a.m. London time (10:30 p.m. EDT Sunday).

The BBC says the protesters were removed from the runway Monday morning, but not before forcing a three-hour closure of the runway and the cancellation of more than a dozen flights.

Delays were a bigger problem. Flight-tracking service FlightAware showed nearly a third of Heathrow's flights were running late as of 3 p.m. London time (10 a.m. ET). The airport warned customers to check ahead on the status of their flight.

Police tell the BBC that nine protestors were arrested "on suspicion of Aviation Act offences."

The activist group is upset about calls to add a new runway at Heathrow.

Heathrow is Europe's busiest airport. But it's also at capacity. British officials fear London could eventually be overtaken by other European rivals as the region's top hub unless a move is made to expand capacity at Heathrow or at one of London's other airports. A long-awaited independent commission concluded earlier this month that adding a third runway at Heathrow made the most sense.

But AP notes "environmental activists are outraged by the results of the three-year study, saying that a new runway will make air quality worse and exacerbate climate change."

And the Financial Times adds that the U.K. government "will publish a response to the Airports Commission report by the end of the year but Prime Minister David Cameron faces a fierce battle within his own party, with a string of ministers as well as high profile MPs such as Boris Johnson vehemently opposing Heathrow expansion."

Stay tuned ...