FREEZING WEATHER is set to continue until St Stephen’s Day as airlines put on extra flights to get tens of thousands of stranded passengers home for Christmas.
While snow showers may linger in the east over the coming days, Met Éireann says air travel is unlikely to be affected, leading to hopes that as many as 65,000 people on up to 200 flights will be able to land at or take off from Dublin airport today.
Extra flights to Britain, continental Europe and North America will be put in place from Dublin today as airlines attempt to clear a backlog of passengers whose Christmas travel plans have been disrupted by the bad weather.
Aer Lingus said it was using wide-bodied aircraft on some European routes to increase capacity. The airline laid on about 17 extra flights yesterday and expects to organise a round trip to the east coast of the United States today. Ryanair has more than 14 extra flights listed for today between Dublin and European destinations.
Siobhán Moore of the Dublin Airport Authority said many of those stranded were stressed and emotional, but extra staff were keeping passengers informed.
All other airports on the island were operational yesterday, with the exception of Belfast International, which closed briefly in the morning.
Some schedules are expected to continue to be affected by weather-related delays elsewhere in Europe.
Met Éireann forecaster John Eagleton said that apart from scattered snow showers in the east, the coming days would see dry weather over much of the country. While the days up to Christmas would be bright and sunny, apart from some possible freezing fog in the midlands, sub-zero temperatures at night would cause the freeze to continue.
Forecasters said Christmas Eve and Christmas Day would be mostly dry, but a change of air mass from St Stephen’s Day would bring wet and windy weather, spreading from the west. This is likely to fall as snow at first. Met Éireann is predicting “severe weather of another nature” from December 27th, with heavy rain combined with the thawing snow and ice likely to cause flooding.
At a meeting of the Government’s Severe Weather Co-ordination Committee yesterday, Seán O’Neill of the National Roads Authority said he was “feeling much better” about the amount of salt available to treat roads after an early delivery of 3,000 tonnes to Dublin Port on Tuesday.
Mr O’Neill said further shipments were scheduled to arrive in coming days, meaning the amount of salt used to treat motorways and primary routes would be increased by 50 per cent to 3,000 tonnes daily.
Yesterdays early opening of the final section of the M7 motorway will be welcomed by those travelling between Dublin and Limerick this Christmas. It bypasses Toomevara, Moneygall and Roscrea.
Despite the closure of schools in many areas, the Department of Education has said it will not be necessary for schools to reopen earlier than scheduled in January.