Dublin airport was eerily calm this morning as people queued to check-in for the few flights not cancelled due to restrictions caused by a plume of volcanic ash.
In the departures area, often almost un-navigable because of the number of people buzzing through it, snaking queues were kept in order with flexible barriers and passengers were simply getting on with it.
Of course, the would-be passengers who were suffering most disruption due to cancelled flights had probably taken the advice of airlines and the Dublin Airport Authority to stay away if their flights had been cancelled.
By 11am, the overhead flight information panel signalled dozens of cancellations: Cork, Carcasonne, Frankfurt, London Stansted, London Gatwick, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Zurich, Paris, Geneva, Birmingham, Eindhoven, Hamburg, Billund, New York, Toulouse.
Dublin Airport Authority spokeswoman Siobhan Moore said some 384 flights had been cancelled yesterday “affecting approximately 45,000 passengers".
“Although the IAA have lifted restrictions in Irish airspace it's still having a significant effect because UK airspace is still heavily restricted so it's having a knock-on effect on the schedule. Nothing is going to take off or land going into the UK airports and Aer Lingus and Ryanair have confirmed that - our two biggest customers."
“We've had some transatlantic flights that have departed. It's a very limited operation. There are severe restrictions east-bound and south-bound. But west-bound there will be some transatlantic and domestic flights as well. We are waiting for some clarity on that.
“We are just getting word from Aer Lingus that they are going to operate some Spanish flights so it very much depends on the individual airline. The IAA are leaving it up to the airlines to make that decision themselves.
“From our point of view, we have had regular meetings with all the agencies involved. We've had conference calls and we're keeping in regular contact because we all need to be prepared for the full resumption of business when that does eventually happen. We need to make sure that we are staffed up accordingly and that the plans are in place.
“We've had lots of staff on duty and we're experts in managing queues at this stage. So we had very orderly queue arrangements yesterday and it worked very well for us. Passengers were very calm. Frustrated, but they can't control it. It's a safety issue and there's not even a question to be asked about that.”
Ms Moore said the atmosphere in the airport was “quite strange, quite eerie in the sense that business is not as it normally is here”.
It was very difficult to estimate how much business would be affected by the flight cancellations today and yesterday, however.
“We've had quite a few hits this year. We had closures due to bad weather, due to the snow, we've had an air traffic control strike and now this. It's quite a significant hit to the business. But we are getting information out to people any way we can and it's definitely working.”
The airport has opened free wi-fi access to assist passengers trying to rebook flights or make alternative travel arrangements.
However, Ms Moore said passengers should not travel to the airport if they were aware their flights had been cancelled and they should attempt to rebook from home if possible.
Matthias Mennekes from Frankfurt travelled from Waterford this morning to catch a flight home for the weekend, only to find it had been cancelled. Sitting over coffee with two colleagues in the airport food hall, Mr Mennekes said the information available last night indicated his 12.05pm flight would go today.
Now, however, he faces an overnighter in Dublin and a flight to Frankfurt tomorrow instead.
An auditor with a large international firm, Mr Mennekes travels widely and said he was used to delays and problems. “We travel 11 months out of 12 they send you every four weeks to another location, Europe the Middle East and Africa are the main locations. This is the first week here in Ireland for us," he said.
“My colleague was booked to fly to Poland and another colleagues was booked for Italy on an Aer Lingus flight but all the flights got cancelled.”
Mr Mennekes said Lufthansa had given him vouchers for accommodation straight away.
"There was no problem.” His colleague Joanna Kostecka from Poznan said she was very disappointed to find her flight home for the weekend had been cancelled as she had been looking forward to seeing her young son and had activities planned.
She will return to Waterford facing into another week's work on an audit project in the hope she can make it home to Poland next weekend.
By 5pm, about 450 flights of 462 due to arrive and depart from the airport today had been cancelled. A spokeswoman for the Dublin Airport Authority appealed to passengers not to travel to the airport without checking first whether their flight had been cancelled.
She said those whose travel plans had been changed should try to re-book from home. Even the multi-storey car parks at the airport were quiet today, with ample parking space even on the normally full ground levels.