Thousands of people will be on the move by road, rail and air today as the final rush to get home for Christmas or to be reunited with loved ones overseas for the holiday season gets under way.
Yesterday was the busiest day at Dublin Airport this festive season, with 71,000 passengers travelling through. The airport will be closed tomorrow and will reopen on St Stephen’s Day.
A total of 620,000 passengers are expected to fly into and out of the airport during the Christmas period.
Shannon Airport is the only airport which will stay open throughout the holiday, with two flights due in tomorrow for refuelling. The airport is also the destination for most overflying transatlantic aircraft if they get into difficulty and need to land.
There were some delays to flights from the UK on Saturday due to winds, while a flight from Warsaw diverted to Shannon because of winds at Dublin. About 36,000 people are expected to travel through the airport over the holiday period.
Rail travel
Train services will end at 9pm tonight, with no trains running tomorrow or on St Stephen’s Day.
Passengers travelling after Wednesday should check with Iarnród Éireann, as normal services will not return until next week ( irishrail.ie).
There were delays to some trains between Westport and Dublin, and Clara and Tullamore yesterday after trees fell on lines.
Iarnród Éireann said 400,000 people would use their services over the festive period.
Dublin Bus will also stop running most routes at about 9pm tonight. There will be no buses running tomorrow; services will return on St Stephen's Day operating a Sunday schedule. Normal services will return on Thursday ( dublinbus.ie).
Bus Éireann will not operate tomorrow; buses will return on St Stephen's Day with a reduced service ( buseireann.ie). Some 300,000 people will use the buses over the period.
Gardaí said they did not expect any problems with road travel but appealed to people to slow down, wear their seat belts and not to drink and drive.