Most Knock Airport flights today are not affected by the volcanic ash - but the flight to Faro has been cancelled due to problems in Portugal.
The coming days don’t look good - Met Éireann says a change to north to northwesterly winds is likely to steer the ash cloud down from Iceland over Ireland. Flights in and out of western airports and transatlantic routes may be worst affected, but cancellations are also likely on services to central European destinations affected by the cloud.
“We’ll be under threat for a good part of this week as the wind direction becomes less favourable,” said forecaster Gerry Scully of Met Éireann. “There could well be interruptions to air services as a result.”
Irish Aviation Authority chief executive Eamonn Brennan described the outlook for Ireland over the coming week as mixed. A change in wind direction would bring more “bad news” for air travellers but the ash emitted by the volcano was reducing in volume and had descended from 35,000 feet to 20,000 feet.
Western airports were worst affected yesterday, but all Irish airports suffered cancellations. Donegal, Sligo and Knock airports were closed at 3pm, while Galway closed at 4pm and Kerry at 10pm. Ryanair and Aer Arann cancelled flights to Derry during the day, but later services were expected to operate.
Aer Lingus cancelled some flights between Ireland and France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Croatia, while Ryanair said the main disruption was on routes to and from Italy.
The authority said Dublin, Cork and Waterford airports would operate normally until at least 1pm today, and flights would continue to arrive and depart Shannon until at least 7am. The authority said a large cloud of high ash concentration had been growing off the west coast, causing difficulties for some transatlantic services and southern European flights.
The cloud measures approximately 2,100 miles long and 1,400 miles wide, forming a crescent pattern in an arc that runs from northern Spain to northern Scotland.
Ppassengers with travel plans over the coming days should check their airline website and the aviation authority’s website before going to the airport.