Was in a aerlingus flight from London to Dublin last night. Counted 6 flights circling Dublin for half an hour. Pilot told us we were diverting to Belfast to refuel, the. After 10mins we were told Belfast was full and we were diverting to Shannon instead. After an hour in Shannon we finally got refueled and landed in Dublin, 4 hours after taking off from London! Glad the AA flight landed safely.

was on an aerlingus flight from geneva to dublin last night, we were told that the runway was closed due to a plane blocking both runways, we were forced iinto a holding pattern for about 45 minutes, before diverting to shannon to refuel, we were supposed to arrive at approx. 10 irish time, ended up landing in dublin at 1:30, counted at least three other planes at shannon that were diverted.

Thanks Michael and John, maybe I am an anorak but the story now makes so much sense rather than a “Technical Problem” closing Dublin Airport.

So many mechanical/maintenance issues lately with American Airlines..better safe than sorry in fairness – fair play to the pilots…AA are going through alot of labour unrest lately with ALPU and 11, 000 job losses on the cards having entered bankruptcy etc… and there have been huge delays in domestic flights with AA over the last month in the US – and several incidents of international flights making landings due to maintenance issues – some say this is the pilots putting pressure on American Airlines – either way safety is the main thing!! I hope they survive bankruptcy because the more competition on transatlantic the better…i see United’s fares have gone up a considerable amount – if AA are out of the picture we can expect fares to go up even more ( they offer free beer/wine in economy on transatlantic too) – ive got a good price with them Dub to Chicago and onwards to NY even only booking 3 weeks in advance .

Thanks Michael, that makes sense but why does this close Dublin Airport for hours ?

I wonder what’s the difference landing in Dublin or Boston and blocking runway in either Airport ?
Answer ; probably 100 ton of Kerosene dumped over the Irish Sea.