受极端天气影响，欧洲大部分国家本周继续遭遇暴雪，导致多数航班延误或取消，数千乘客滞留机场。为安抚乘客情绪，德国法兰克福国际机场特意请四名小丑到候机大厅表演。

With travellers frazzled（疲惫的） by hundreds of flight cancellations, Germany's busiest airport has hired clowns to help them and their children pass the hours, a spokeswoman said Monday.

"Four clowns are performing in the terminal halls," the spokeswoman for Frankfurt's international airport told AFP.

"We came up with（提出，想出） the idea for the kids, who are finding the delays particularly trying."

The clowns, outfitted¹（配备，供应） in brightly coloured costumes and some parading on stilts²（踩着高跷） , started working over the weekend, when heavy snowfall led to hundreds of flights being scrapped³ amid chaos⁴ in the European air traffic network.

Fights broke out at the airport among stressed-out holiday travellers late Friday, according to press reports, leading police to send in reinforcements.

More than 1,000 stranded⁵ passengers had to spend the night from Sunday to Monday at the airport, where camp beds were set up in the terminals.

On Sunday about half of Frankfurt's scheduled 1,329 flights were grounded, mainly because other airports around Europe were closed due to extreme winter weather.

Over 340 flights were axed by the early afternoon on Monday.