Virgin Atlantic, which operates daily services to Narita from Heathrow, also cancelled its Tokyo flight today. A Virgin spokeswoman said: "Narita is about one hour from central Tokyo and we've cancelled our flight VS900 and the return flight VS901 today.

The UK Foreign Office has advised against all non-essential travel to Tokyo and the north of Japan, while airlines warned customers still travelling to expect cancellations and delays. Although Tokyo has been largely unaffected by the 8.9-magnitude quake, transport has been severely disrupted, with little or no public transport running from Narita and Haneda airports to the capital.

In a statement, it said: "We advise against all non-essential travel to Tokyo and the north-east of Japan whilst we assess the damage caused by the 11 March earthquake.

"There is a continued risk of tsunamis in Japan. If travelling to Japan, you should be aware that there is still widespread transport disruption, widespread power cuts and disruption to water supplies and temporary shortages of supplies to shops throughout the affected areas. Aftershocks are still occurring very frequently. There is currently no public transport to or from the airports in Tokyo."

United Continental Holdings Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc. and American Airlines canceled dozens of flights between the U.S. and Tokyo after Japan’s strongest earthquake on record clogged two major airports.

Cancellations at Narita International, Japan’s main overseas gateway, stranded almost 14,000 people before partial operations resumed with the rescheduling of nine departures. Tokyo’s Haneda airport, Asia’s second-busiest by passengers, also resumed flights.

Delta reported the most scrubbed flights among U.S. airlines on March 11, dropping 29 trips to and from Narita and Haneda, about half of the daily total. AMR Corp.’s American canceled four U.S.-bound flights, United scrapped 10 flights and its Continental unit grounded one.

United, Delta and American, the largest U.S. airlines by traffic, waived fees for rebooking Japan travel at least through March 14.

Japan Airlines Corp. and All Nippon Airways Co. grounded flights nationwide, affecting more than 60,000 travelers. China Southern Airlines Co., the nation’s largest carrier, canceled four Tokyo flights for March 12 and halted ticket sales for services on March 13, it said in an e-mailed statement.

Qantas Airways Ltd.’s Jetstar budget unit diverted two Tokyo-bound flights to Guam and Malaysian Airline System Bhd. sent one to Taipei.