Angry response from stranded travellers

DUBLIN:"I'M FURIOUS with a capital F" was the response of one passenger at Dublin airport yesterday after discovering her 14.40 flight to Budapest was cancelled.

Peggy O’Sullivan from Cork said: “I’m absolutely furious as I have an appointment in Budapest which I’m now going to miss as my flight was cancelled, and the next available flight isn’t until Friday.”

Ms O’Sullivan, who left her Cork home at 7am yesterday, was among hundreds of disgruntled passengers who arrived at Dublin airport to discover all flights between 12.50pm and 6pm cancelled.

“I encountered problems flying from Cork to Dublin, with that flight delayed 1½ hours, and now I have to put up with a cancelled flight from Dublin,” she said, adding that the air traffic controllers “have no right to put the country to ransom, they should be glad they have jobs”.

Liam Gallogly from Leitrim, who was due to fly to London for a funeral, said: “We’ve had a family bereavement so booked a flight to Gatwick, which was supposed to be at 2.40pm. However, on hearing on Tuesday that flights between 2pm and 6pm would be cancelled, we rebooked our flight for 10.45am. We were very annoyed when we arrived at the airport to discover that this flight had also been cancelled,” he said.

Queues of angry passengers formed at check-in desks as air travellers, fearing they would miss connecting flights from other destinations, attempted to change their flights.

Among those in the queue was Brazilian Pedro Moraes, who was supposed to fly from Dublin to Madrid and then on to Brazil.

“I’m annoyed as I had to pay €53 to change my flight and get on a later one to Madrid, despite none of this being my fault,” he said.

One person who was visibly happy about yesterday’s strike action was Mr Moraes’s girlfriend Joyce Souza.

“I won’t be seeing him again until October as I have to stay in Ireland to finish my English course, so I’m thrilled to have an extra few hours to spend with him,” she said.

Australian Ash Jacks, who was travelling home via London said: “We heard about the cancellations yesterday and were waiting to get an e-mail but never got one. We checked the Ryanair website, which had listed a number of flight cancellations, but ours wasn’t one of them. It was very frustrating to get to the airport then and discover our flight was cancelled after all.”

Her friend, Nicole Ferguson, said “luckily it doesn’t put us out too much as we will still arrive in London tonight, and our flight to Australia isn’t for two days . . . another friend of ours had to rebook her flight to Australia”.

One place that benefited from the travel chaos and lengthy delays was the airport food hall where hundreds of people wined and dined in an effort to pass the time.

Brian Doherty from Cork was waiting in the food hall with friends Tom Byrne and Paddy Kennedy. “We were supposed to fly to Madrid and then get a connecting flight from there to Ecuador,” he said, adding “our flight to Madrid has been delayed by nearly five hours, so hopefully we’ll make our connecting flight”.