‘It isn’t OK’: Grandad's anger as Trump visit leads to diversion of Shannon flight and long delay
Passengers experience four hour delay after unplanned stopover in Belfast
A FLIGHT from Italy to Shannon Airport had to be diverted to Belfast over US President Donald Trump’s visit to his golf resort in Doonbeg on Saturday, Limerick Live has learned.
One passenger aboard Ryanair flight FR9804 from Ciampino Rome to Shannon described it as “an information vacuum”.
The aeroplane was due to land at 1.50pm yesterday but they didn’t land in County Clare until 5.30pm after a stopover in Belfast.
Limerick Live sent a media query to Shannon Airport Group this Sunday who advised contacting Ryanair’s press office.
A Ryanair spokesperson said: “That's correct - this flight from Rome to Shannon diverted to Belfast due to Shannon's temporary closure for AF1's (Air Force One) arrival.
“Passengers remained onboard and continued to Shannon when operations at Shannon Airport resumed.”
The passenger, who was travelling with his wife, daughter and son-in-law and young grandchildren, said: “The captain told us while we were in the air that they were diverting because of ‘bad weather’ over Shannon and that we would have a 90 minute delay in landing there, which we didn’t have enough fuel on board for.”
The man said “nobody believed him about the weather”.
“We got no updates from the crew after that, only regular apologies for the delay which was ‘outside their control’.
“While we were on the ground (in Belfast) there was no update from anyone, so passengers were fairly annoyed, but no one was too rowdy. AF1 or Trump weren’t mentioned once by the crew, the passengers figured it out fairly quickly.
“After we landed in Belfast we weren’t told for about an hour that we were going to be flown back to Shannon, so some passengers were trying to arrange to be picked up in Belfast instead of Shannon.
“When we were told, they had to recontact their families to turn them back to Shannon. It was a bit of a s** show all around really,” they told Limerick Live.
The passenger described the mood as “bemused and frustrated”.
“People were generally sympathetic to the crew, who weren’t responsible, however one person did come up and remonstrate with one of the stewards because of the lack of information.”
The traveller said President Trump is in Ireland on an unofficial visit as a private visitor to his property in Doonbeg.
“Because he is the US president it is understandable that this will cause some inconvenience to the country in terms of extra security and we should expect some delays etc in traffic restrictions and diversions.
“However, does AF1 have the authority to override Irish air traffic control directions for personal reasons?” asked the man, who queried if the flyover of Trump International Golf Links before landing in Shannon Airport was the reason.
He said if he had been on his own, or with his wife, he wouldn’t have been too put out “but the grandkids are a different kettle of fish, and we needed to know what was happening much more clearly”.
“It isn’t OK to leave a mother and her two young children sitting on a runway for that amount of time without giving information about what is going on.
“We were trying to figure out where we would stay in Belfast with suitable arrangements for two small kids, how we could get to Shannon to pick up our cars, where food was going to come from - not even the offer of a bottle of water from Ryanair - all in an information vacuum,” he concluded.