Air passengers leaving Irish airports for the UK and Europe yesterday experienced delays of up to three hours because of a problem in the air traffic control computer system in southern England.
Passengers waiting to return to Ireland had even longer waits at British airports like Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick where delays of over six hours were reported.
The Irish soccer team luckily escaped a long wait. There was a 35 to 40 minute delay at Dublin for their flight to Amsterdam.
The difficulties began at 7 a.m. yesterday after a computer software problem in the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) system in Swanwick, Hampshire resulted in delays and cancellations. Air traffic controllers were forced to halve the number of aircraft normally in the skies.
The system was returned to full capacity by noon but the backlog of flights meant passengers had long delays throughout the day.
An Aer Lingus spokeswoman said there were severe operating difficulties. They had to cancel a couple of flights, but put on larger aircraft to try to clear the backlog of passengers.
A spokesman for Ryanair said that its airline in common with all other airlines operating to and from London, or overflying UK airspace, had suffered delays to some of its scheduled flights.
A spokeswoman from the Irish Aviation Authority, which has air traffic control in its remit, said the flights most affected were those going eastwards, leaving for UK airports and for European destinations which had to go through British air space.
The problem had been resolved in Britain at midday but there was a continuing backlog of flights.
"Dublin has had by far the worse delays with passengers waiting up to three hours for flights because it has the greatest volume of traffic, particularly to the UK.
Shannon and Cork have not experienced so many problems," she said.
An Aer Rianta spokeswoman said the delays were right across the board but they were hoping to catch up as the day went on.
In Britain, Nats chief executive Mr Richard Everitt said safety had not been compromised. "I obviously apologise that it has happened, but it is one of those things that tend to happen with new systems," he said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.