Passengers at Cork Airport affected by air traffic control issues in Britain

PASSENGERS travelling through Cork Airport have been advised to check the status of their flight before heading to the airport.

Tens of thousands of airline passengers travelling to and from Britain suffered flight cancellations today due to the impact of an air traffic control fault.

The issue started on Monday, when more than a quarter of flights at British airports were cancelled.

UK air traffic control company National Air Traffic Services suffered what it described as a technical issue preventing it from automatically processing flight plans.

This resulted in flights to and from British airports being restricted while the plans were checked manually.

Cork city resident Matthew McKevitt’s flight from Liverpool to Cork on yesterday afternoon was cancelled.

He was told to book a hotel and fly from Liverpool today, but due to work commitments he booked a flight from Manchester on Monday, which was eventually cancelled.

“I booked into a hotel and had to take an extra day off work.

“The airports were chaotic, but the staff were as helpful as they could be,” he said.

Cork Airport communications manager Barry Holland, said that staff there are working hard to support passengers “and to ensure passengers impacted by UK air traffic control issues resume their travel plans as quickly and as safely as possible.”

Meanwhile, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said  that he hoped flights would be back to normal from today.

He said that today the airline had to cancel around 70 flights.

“That’s a very small number out of the 3,200 flights we’re planning but that does not mean we’re not doing everything we possibly can to try to minimise the disruption for our passengers and their families,” he said.