Flights began arriving in Dublin airport today, six days after the plume of volcanic ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano caused massive disruption to air traffic across Europe.
The cloud of ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano has forced the cancellation of over 60,000 flights across Europe since it erupted last Wednesday. About 80 per cent of scheduled flights in Europe are expected to operate today, European air traffic agency Eurocontrol said. It expects almost all flights to run tomorrow.
The lrish Aviation Authority (IAA) and the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority sanctioned the resumption of full services on a phased basis in Irish and UK airspace from 9pm last night to Europe, North America and the UK. The IAA said earlier this morning all Irish airspace was now open to flights.
However, the authority said the focus today was on positioning aircraft and crews, and warned that full service by the airlines may take a number of days to recover. The lifting of the restrictions is subject to the ash cloud, currently positioned between Iceland and Ireland, not returning to Irish airspace.
It said it is "satisfied" that commercial air travel outside of the exclusion zone around Iceland does not present a safety risk.
Met Éireann said today south-south-westerly winds bringing rain over Ireland in the coming days will push the volcanic ash plume over Greenland.
An estimated 30,000 Irish people have been left stranded overseas by the disruption.
A flight from Tenerife became the first aircraft containing passengers to land at an Irish airport since last week when it touched down at Shannon at about 7pm last night. The passengers on Aer Lingus flight EI 2767 were then bussed to Dublin.
A number of flights from Milan, Madrid, Galway and Istanbul landed in Dublin during the afternoon. While the airport was gradually beginning to return to normal, many passengers still face disruption and cancellations.
The queues at the information desks and ticket desks had grown shorter by mid-afternoon, while those at the Aer Lingus baggage-drop desk were getting longer.
Dublin airport is expecting 28 flights outbound flights and 48 inbound flights to be cancelled today. Cork Airport said at least five flights had been cancelled and it expected its first arrivals after 4pm.
Two transatlantic flights arrived at Dublin airport this morning. A Delta Airlines from Atlanta touched down at 9am, followed by a US Airlines flight from Philadelphia.
Aer Lingus, which cancelled all flights this morning, said it hoped to operate 120 flights today. Most of its transatlantic services are operate, but flights EI 105 from Dublin to New York and EI 133 from Dublin and Shannon to Boston were cancelled.
In a statement this evening, Aer Lingus said all flights between Ireland and the United Kingdom, Europe and United States are scheduled to operate tomorrow. The carrier said there would be additional capacity of 2,000 extra seats on a number of routes, including those to Tenerife, Las Palmas, Malaga, Barcelona, Lisbon, Naples, Venice, and Milan.
Shannon, which welcomed the first transatlantic service into the country last night, said it expected eight arrivals to be cancelled but urged passengers to contact airlines to check if departures were going ahead.
Ryanair said it was cancelling flights on services between Ireland and the UK until 5am on Friday to free up aircraft to clear passenger backlogs across Europe. The airline said southbound flights from Spain, southern Italy, southern France, Malta and Morocco were operating as normal while flights across the north of the continent will operate from 5am tomorrow.
Chief executive Michael O’Leary warned there will be considerable air traffic control and airport delays over the next few days due to intense demand for flights.
“We have issued instructions to all of our airports that our immediate priority will be to ensure that no seat operates empty, while there are backlogs of disrupted passengers wishing to travel,” he said. “Accordingly Ryanair will be operating extra flights on those routes where we believe there are significant numbers of disrupted passengers.”
Ryanair has extra flights on Friday to and from Birmingham, Dublin, Edinburgh, London Stansted and Liverpool. Passengers who have suffered disruption can transfer onto these flights using the carrier's website, Ryanair said.
However, Ryanair has come under fire after warning it will only offer passengers reimbursement for expenses incurred during the six day grounding based on the air fare they originally paid. Authorities have insisted the airline must abide by European rules to meet passengers‘ costs and urged people left out of pocket to pursue claims.
Passengers are advised to consult airline websites before travelling to the airport for flights.
The shutdown of air services has so far cost Ryanair and Aer Lingus over €70 million. Ryanair said it was losing €6 million a day and Aer Lingus estimated the cost at €5 million daily, but both airlines said they could withstand the losses. Both airlines said they were continuing to pay their staff despite the cancellations.
While the volcano is now generating less ash, Met Éireann has forecast that the weather over Ireland will remain unchanged for the next few days. This means the plume of smoke might not move away from its current path before the weekend.
The World Health Organisation said ash particles remain high in the atmosphere and do not pose a health risk so far. The Environmental Protection Agency has said there has been no deterioration of air quality associated with the volcanic ash plume.