Airlines at Dublin Airport will today complete clearing the backlog of passengers whose travel plans were disrupted by the weekend breakdown of a computer which handles all aircraft entering UK airspace.
Thousands of travellers to many European destinations were stranded in Dublin Airport following Saturday's collapse of the UK's main air traffic control computer. Transatlantic flights from Dublin, which do not enter UK airspace, were not disrupted.
Flight schedules largely returned to normal yesterday as airlines coped with the aftermath of the computer failure, which led to the cancellation of 47 incoming and outgoing flights on Saturday and long delays on a further 400 flights.
Dublin-bound passengers from many UK and European destinations were also affected by the computer failure. The extensive queues and chaos at Dublin Airport throughout Saturday had largely cleared yesterday as passengers were accommodated on alternative flights.
Airlines including Ryanair, British Midland, Aer Lingus, British Airlines and Jersey European had to cancel flights on Saturday, according to an Aer Rianta spokesman.
He said the knock-on effects continued yesterday, with delays of more than an hour on 56 flights. Five Ryanair flights were cancelled yesterday, with passengers accommodated on other flights, according to an airline spokeswoman. She said a small number of passengers whose UK flights were cancelled on Saturday will travel today.
A spokesman for Aer Lingus said the airline resumed normal services yesterday after clearing its backlog of passengers between the UK and Dublin by putting on extra flights. Two aircraft normally used only on transatlantic routes carried some 2,000 stranded passengers between London and Dublin yesterday. An Australian honeymoon couple on their way to the Maldives spent Saturday night in bed-and-breakfast accommodation in Dublin after their evening Aer Lingus flight to Heathrow Airport was cancelled.
Mr John Steer said he was not sure whether they would be able to get another connecting flight from Heathrow to their destination with Singapore Airlines. The couple were booked on an Aer Lingus flight to Heathrow last night. "I just want to go home now. It's put a dampener on it. The honeymoon will haunt us, but at least it's a memory," he said.
At the height of the chaos on Saturday, stranded passengers lined corridors in sweltering heat in departure lounges or queued for hours to try to book new flights after theirs were cancelled. Only travelling passengers who could produce their flight tickets were allowed to enter the departure terminal by airport police.
Mr Conor Guilfoyle, who was stranded for more than 10 hours awaiting a Ryanair charter flight to Nice with his wife and child, said the airline only agreed to give them food vouchers after passengers complained. According to Mr Guilfoyle, airport police were called to the departure gate after passengers began protesting about the lack of information. A spokeswoman for Ryanair said the delays on the Nice flight were due to a technical problem, and food vouchers were automatically provided to passengers. She said the airline was unaware of reports of airport police being called to the gate.
A UK National Air Traffic Services spokeswoman said air traffic control services were back to normal yesterday. She said: "There is a knock-on effect on airlines. We appreciate this is because of the system failure on Saturday and we apologise for that. We are as confident as we can be that this computer system is now stable."