Some 3,000 people in southern Ireland had their travel plans thrown into disarray yesterday through the closure of Heathrow Airport's Terminal One. Aer Lingus and British Midland flew their Heathrow-bound passengers to Stansted Airport in Essex.
Aer Lingus had 19 scheduled flights to Heathrow yesterday, 12 from Dublin, four from Shannon and three from Cork.
A spokesman for the airline said delays were of the order of 30-40 minutes. Although Terminal One reopened at 3 p.m., Aer Lingus said it would stay with Stansted for the rest of the day because customers and travel agents had been advised earlier that Terminal One was unlikely to reopen until today.
An Airbus with a capacity of 280 seats was sent specially to Heathrow yesterday evening, mainly to pick up passengers who had succeeded in getting through the chaotic traffic conditions around the airport caused by the early morning fire.
A British Midland spokesman said they had eight scheduled flights from Dublin to Heathrow yesterday. Three were cancelled and the others diverted to Stansted wished to fly were accommodated. At Stansted, an airport spokeswoman said most of the diverted flights were from British Midland and Aer Lingus, but the airport handled flights from other airlines, including El Al of Israel.
A rail link from Stansted to Heathrow brought travellers with onward connections to Terminal One.
Aer Lingus and British Midland are the main operators from Dublin and have close to 20 services to and from Dublin to Heathrow each day. The other airlines serving the London market do not fly to Heathrow. Ryanair flies to Luton and Stansted. CityJet flies to London City Airport.
At Belfast, where all flights to Heathrow were delayed, suspended or diverted to Stansted, Luton or Bournemouth, a spokesman for British Airways said: "Two thousand people had been due to fly . . . Our flights were full today. Friday is a very busy day."