Updated at 11pm
AER LINGUS HAS cancelled early morning short-haul flights from Dublin in response to the latest Status Red weather alert issued by Met Eireann this evening.
Earlier, Ryanair had said that operations would resume tomorrow morning, but following the update from Met Eireann, it has had to cancel some of those flights.
The Luas has said this evening that its Green and Red lines will not be operating tomorrow morning, and they will make an assessment on when the service will resume tomorrow at 9am.
Irish Rail had planned for services to resume from 7am tomorrow, but because of the latest Met Éireann warning have revised this to 12 noon.
Dublin Bus said that it expects services to return tomorrow at 12pm with some delays, and Bus Éireann said its services in the east would start from noon.
Aer Lingus has announced that it has cancelled early morning short-haul flights from Dublin, with most operations not commencing until after 10am.
“We expect flights to/from Cork, Belfast, Knock to operate as scheduled. This is subject to further update,” the airline said.
“We await information on when Shannon is expected to become operational and we will update when this is confirmed.”
Ryanair, meanwhile said that it has had to had to cancel a number of flights to and from Dublin airport.
All affected customers have already been notified of their options by email and SMS text message and should avoid travelling to the airport.
It recommended that all other customers check the status of their flight before making their way to the airport. You can do that by clicking here.
Dublin Airport will be open from 6am tomorrow and have advised passengers to check with their airline whether their flight is scheduled as planned BEFORE travelling to the airport.
Irish Rail say inspections will be carried out overnight and, where possible, some services will resume in the morning from 12pm.
Irish Rail spokesperson Barry Kenny told TheJournal.ie that there were a number of things their staff were doing to prepare for services to resume tomorrow.
“Right now we have crews out on a number of things – we’ve put out locomotives to go ahead and prove the track – so effectively they’re clearing the track.
We’ve hired in a fleet of road-rail vehicles [which can go on the rails and the road] which will be going along tracks clearing the snow.
We are clearing points at areas where it’s the sensible thing to do.
“We’ll have more proving trains overnight and in the morning we can check things like level crossings.”
He said that the railway’s plan “is subject to change”.
“We are being very clear everything is subject to what the overnight works find and what the weather is, but we have [another] Status Red so that is a bit of a concern. But as I say the work is continuing,” he said.
Surcharges are being waived for customers who want to change or cancel their bookings, see Irish Rail’s website for more details.
Bus Éireann‘s services across the country will resume tomorrow – with services in the west starting from 9am and services in the east beginning at noon, weather depending.
In the east, all Expressway services to operate from midday, and all local commuter routes are subject to assessment tomorrow morning.
In the west, all Galway city services to operate from 0900, all Athlone town services to operate and rural services in the West will operate with some curtailments and cancellations.
In the south, all Cork City services and Expressway and rural services will operate from 10am
In the south west, all Limerick City services to operate from 8am, and all Expressway and rural services to operate from 9am.
In the South East, all Waterford City services to operate from 1pm and all Expressway services to operate from 1pm.
Dublin Bus expect to be back running in the morning however there will be disruption to scheduled services and diversions will be in place.
“Our priority now is to confirm road and weather conditions are safe so our maintenance employees will be able to operate tomorrow morning,” it said.
We will issue further updates to customers on our website www.dublinbus.ie and on our Twitter account, @dublinbusnews from approximately 10.00 tomorrow morning.
Later Luas
Although the Luas said services wouldn’t resume in the morning, it added that it expected the service to resume “later on Saturday… with reduced frequency and will not operate a full Line”.
On the Green Line we do not anticipate a service on Saturday between Sandyford and Brides Glen and on the Red Line between Red Cow and Tallaght, Red Cow and Saggart. These sections of Lines are badly affected by snow.
Luas maintenance teams are working to de-ice overhead power lines and to clear snow from stops and tracks. A team of snow ploughs and diggers has been mobilised however the company that operates the tram is unable to say it will be back running.
- with reporting from Gráinne Ní Aodha
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say