Watch: Flights to Manchester and Dublin diverted to France and Germany due to Storm Isha
Flights between Britain and Ireland have been diverted to France after pilots aborted landings during Storm Isha.
Winds of up to 99mph and multiple Met Office weather warnings, including two amber wind alerts and a rare red warning in northern Scotland, spelled difficult conditions at airports across the country.
Two Ryanair flights bound for Dublin, one from Lanzarote in the Canary Islands and the other from Manchester, were forced to take lengthy detours to Bordeaux and Paris, respectively.
They had both flown to the Irish capital but aborted their approaches to the runway in gale-force winds.
Meanwhile, passengers on other short-haul flights faced sitting through hours of small airborne manoeuvres only to end up at the wrong destination anyway.
A Ryanair flight from Copenhagen to Dublin was diverted to Manchester. After spending four hours grounded there, passengers endured a further three hours circling Dublin as the pilot tried to land, before ultimately landing at Liverpool, just 50km (31miles) away from where the plane had initially touched down.
Another Ryanair flight that was scheduled to make the half-hour trip across the Irish Sea from Manchester to Dublin ended up making a three-hour detour circling Dublin, Belfast and then ultimately ending up back in Manchester.
And in a particularly stark detour, a Ryanair flight from Shannon in Ireland to Edinburgh just before midnight on Sunday unsuccessfully tried to land twice before diverting almost 900km away to Cologne in Germany.
A Tui flight travelling from Sharm el Sheikh to Glasgow Airport also declared an emergency due to Storm Isha. A spokesman for Glasgow Airport said the flight was “diverted to Manchester due to current weather conditions”.
At Bristol Airport, pictures showed hordes of passengers camped out for the night in the terminal after their flights failed to take off.
The Met Office said the highest recorded wind speed during Storm Isha was 99mph at Brizlee Wood in Northumberland, with gusts of 90mph at Capel Curig in Snowdonia on Sunday.
A rare red warning for wind in north-east Scotland was in place until 5am on Monday, with amber warnings covering much of the UK until 6am and further yellow warnings covering the entire country until noon.
A further yellow warning for wind for Scotland, Northern Ireland, north Wales and northern England is active from 4pm on Tuesday until noon on Wednesday.
Air traffic control restrictions lasting into Monday have meant that many more short-haul flights have been cancelled or diverted, especially at Glasgow and Edinburgh airports.
National Air Traffic Services said: “Due to adverse weather conditions across the UK, temporary air traffic restrictions are in place. Restrictions of this sort are only ever applied to maintain safety.
“Our teams are working closely with airports and airlines to minimise disruption. Passengers should check the status of their flight with their airline.”
