Christmas travel misery is beginning to ease - a day late for Heathrow Airport's boss who decided to sacrifice his 2010 bonus.

As thousands of exhausted passengers finally began to move at the airport, under-fire Colin Matthews announced he would forgo his annual bonus.

Last year he took home £944,000 in salary and bonuses.

Mr Matthews, BAA's chief executive, said: "I have decided to give up my bonus for the current year. My focus is on keeping people moving and rebuilding confidence in Heathrow."

BAA would not reveal how much his bonus was.

Heathrow, the world's largest international airport, has made headlines for days as massive amounts of flights were cancelled because of the snow and ice and passengers were left stranded.

Critics slammed Heathrow as a third-world airport and blasted the management's inability to cope with the big freeze.

Earlier, Mick Rix, the GMB union's national officer for the aviation industry, said paying him "a huge bonus" would be "an absolute slap in the face to the thousands of people who have been stranded at Heathrow for the past three days".

Mayor of London Boris Johnson said BAA had "very serious lessons" to learn from the chaos.

And BMI chief executive Wolfgang Prock-Schauer claimed the airport "did not have enough de-icing fluid" - something a Heathrow Airport spokesman strenuously denied.