Flights into and out of Cork Airport will be disrupted for eight hours tomorrow morning as a result of the ongoing Air Traffic Controllers' dispute.
According to the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) services at the airport will be disrupted for "safety reasons".
In a statement the IAA said: "The present unofficial disruption is orchestrated by controllers to ensure that the authority is short of staff and for safety reasons the authority has to restrict traffic and reduce or close services".
The IAA anticipates that the disruption between midnight and 8am this morning will affect 11 flights in total.
However in a statement released this evening Impact, the union representing the controllers, said the IAA made the decision to close the airport due to staff shortages.
The union said that a controller rostered between Dublin and Cork arrived to work the shift only to find that his licence to operate had expired and required re-validation.
Each controller has their licence re-validated every 90 days to work in a specified region.
Impact said the IAA failed to fill the vacant post at such short notice which "underlines the ongoing problems of staff shortages in Air Traffic Control".
The Cork airport authority has advised passengers to check with their respective airlines for more information.
Last Saturday a dozen flights were cancelled at Shannon Airport after the controllers refused to work overtime. There was also disruption at Shannon earlier last Wednesday night and last month 32 flights at Dublin airport were also grounded by the dispute.
Since then there have been a number of hearings before the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) in an attempt to resolve the dispute and talks resume again at the commission next Tuesday, February 19th.