Flights grounded for most of week - IAA

DISRUPTION:FLIGHTS TO and from Irish airports are likely to be grounded for most of the coming week until the spell of dry settled weather breaks, according to the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA).

Up to last night almost 2,000 flights in and out of Dublin, Cork and Shannon alone had been cancelled, upsetting the travel plans of around 230,000 passengers.

That number will increase over the coming days, with around 550 flights involving around 57,000 passengers expected to be cancelled each day from these airports until Irish airspace is reopened.

Speaking after yesterday morning’s meeting of the Government Taskforce on Emergency Planning, Denis Daly of the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) said that while officially Irish airspace was closed until 1pm today, this was likely to be extend into much of the coming week.

“You’ve seen from the weather patterns that it is unlikely that Irish airspace will open to commercial traffic for a number of days.”

Asked whether it would be Saturday or Sunday before international travel could resume, he said: “If it’s possible to open the airspace, let’s say, for transatlantic traffic before that, obviously that is an option we will be looking very closely at.”

However, he said travel to most of Europe and eastwards would be slower to restart: “. . . All of the east-bound traffic going from here, let’s say, to the UK or to Europe, would still seem to remain to be affected.”

Ryanair decided yesterday evening to cancel all its inbound and outbound Irish flights, as well as its flights between most other northern and eastern European countries, until 1pm on Wednesday.

Its flights from Spain, the Canary and Balearic islands, the south of Italy (including Pisa, Rome, Sardinia and Sicily), Malta and North Africa will continue to operate only on domestic and southbound routes.

Aer Lingus has cancelled all flights today, apart from one flight from Washington to Madrid. A spokeswoman said it was constantly reviewing the situation and would provide updates as soon as information became available from the IAA and the aviation authorities of the other countries to which it runs services.

A spokeswoman for the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) asked passengers not to go to the airport, even after airspace is reopened, without first checking with their airlines. “The airlines themselves will decide how they want to operate their flights, so we will take our lead from them.”

She said the DAA was currently putting in place a taskforce which would liaise with the airlines to decide how best to manage the airport once the all-clear was given by the IAA. “This is an unprecedented situation and we have to base our decisions on the updated statements of the IAA.”