A powerful storm grounded dozens of flights in Britain and Ireland on Sunday and Monday, sending passengers to Germany, France and northern Britain and stranding some at airports at night.
At Dublin Airport, 166 flights were canceled on Sunday night, another 29 flights were canceled on Monday, 36 flights diverted to other airports and 34 aircraft made what are known as “go-arounds” or missed landings, according to the airport.
Despite the flight chaos, the airport was open and operating both Sunday and Monday, Graeme McQueen, a spokesman for Dublin Airport, said in a statement to The New York Times. Winds from the storm, named Isha, eased on Sunday night and shifted to a more favorable westerly direction to allow for “a smooth first wave of flights”.
The storm’s wind lashed flight crews, with gusts of between 70 and 75 miles per hour in southern England and Ireland, Steve Fox, head of network operations at NATS, which provides air traffic control services in Britain, said in a statement on Monday . . To the north, gusts were over 90 mph
Mr Fox said aircraft that could not land safely were diverted to other airports.
“Yesterday, because the storm covered the whole country, we notified the airlines that their normal diversion airport might not be available and they might have to divert further away,” he said, adding that flights were being diverted to destinations that were “less affected” and still had space available “at the pilot’s critical decision point.”
Many of the flights operated by Ryanair, a budget airline, including one of Manchester to Dublin which was diverted to Paris and another from Stansted to Newquay, Englandwhich was transferred to Malaga, Spain.
Ryanair said the storm caused some flights to and from airports in Britain and Ireland to be canceled or delayed on Sunday and Monday and advised passengers flying on Monday to check the Ryanair app for updates. It did not say how many flights had been canceled, delayed or diverted.
A Ryanair flight from Budapest to London Stansted was due to depart at 6pm on Sunday. But the two-and-a-half-hour flight turned into a 24-hour journey for Terrell Crossley and her boyfriend, who were trying to get home after a weekend away to celebrate his birthday.
The pilot tried to land the plane twice but was unable to due to the speed of the wind, Ms Crossley told The Times. Instead, the pilot steered the plane to Manchester, about 200 miles northwest of their original destination.
“It was extremely tense and everyone sat in perfect silence,” he wrote of their final descent. “When we landed in Manchester, everyone gave the pilot a standing ovation and you could feel a sense of relief from the passengers. Everyone was grateful to be on the ground.”
But once the plane landed, Ms Crossley said, passengers were held on the tarmac for two and a half hours, during which there was a medical emergency that required an ambulance. He said there was no communication from the pilot and no access to food or water. Finally, the pilot told the passengers that they could disembark in Manchester. Not all did, and some ended up back in Budapest. Ryanair did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ms Crossley and her boyfriend booked a hotel for the night in Manchester and took the train to Stansted on Monday, before finally arriving in London just before 6pm that evening.
Greg Manahan, a Dublin-based TV director, was almost home from a week’s holiday in Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands, when passengers on his Ryanair flight on Sunday night were told they could not land in Dublin, who was about 20 years old. minutes away, and would be heading south to Bordeaux, France.
“Bordeaux is a long way from Dublin, we were almost halfway back to Lanzarote,” Mr Manahan said.
He said passengers had to wait on the plane for an hour after it landed, and that once they got to the airport, there was only one shop selling food still open and “everything that was left was taken away”.
Mr Manahan said passengers were directed to a line that would be set up with accommodation. But after landing in Bordeaux around 6:30pm, they were still at the airport at 11pm. At that point, many people, including Mr. Manahan, decided to find hotel rooms for themselves.
His new flight to Dublin left an hour late on Monday morning and Mr Manahan said he arrived around 11am, almost 24 hours after the flight took off from Lanzarote.
