Hundreds of thousands of UK travellers will wake up on Saturday morning where they did not intend to be after Storm Eowyn wreaked havoc on the transport network.
Even though the extreme weather has abated, many journeys on Saturday are likely to be disrupted due to flight disarray, storm damage and planned rail engineering work.
No ScotRail trains will run until the afternoon, and Northern has cancelled all services on several routes in the north of England.
Air
According to the aviation analysts, Cirium, more than 1,000 flights to, from and within the UK and Ireland were grounded because of the storm on Friday. The worst-affected airports were Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, Belfast International and Belfast City.
Cancellations included long-haul departures from Glasgow to Dubai on Emirates and Edinburgh to Doha on Qatar Airways. Hundreds of passengers were booked on each flight to the Gulf, with many of them connecting to Asia, Africa or Australasia. The second Qatar Airways flight of the day was routed via Manchester and is expected to depart from Edinburgh 15 hours late.
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Some holiday flights on Jet2 and easyJet were delayed by many hours rather than cancelled. The Jet2 flight from Edinburgh to Rome is set to depart 15 hours late, while easyJetpassengers from the Scottish capital to Hurghada in Egypt were 10 hours behind schedule.
Ryanair passengers experienced some interesting diversions on flights to Scotland. Passengers from Krakow to Glasgow endured two missed approaches before their plane was diverted to Manchester.
A flight from Stansted to Edinburgh turned around after being unable to land. At one point the tracking site Flightradar24 reported the Boeing 737 was heading for Cologne in Germany, but the plane made a turn while over the North Sea and returned to Stansted.
With aircraft and crews out of position, cancellations and delays are continuing on Saturday. British Airways has already cancelled four flights from Scotland to London Heathrow: two from Aberdeen and one each from Edinburgh and Glasgow. EasyJet has delays on flights linking Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Rail
The entire rail networks in Scotland and Northern Ireland were closed all day on Friday. TransPennine Express, Northern, LNER and CrossCountry cancelled Anglo-Scottish trains. No trains ran north of Preston on the West Coast main line nor north of Newcastle on the East Coast main line.
ScotRail said on Friday night that “customers should not expect any trains to operate before 12 noon at the earliest” on Sunday.
Ross Moran, Network Rail Scotland route director, said: “This storm has caused extensive damage across Scotland’s railway, bringing trees down onto the tracks and overhead power lines and also damaging stations and other structures.
“Our teams are now working hard to assess the damage, inspect the railway and carry out vital repairs. With dozens of incidents across the country to respond to we will reintroduce services as quickly as possible for our customers.”
Northern warned passengers “to avoid travelling where possible” on Saturday in northwest England “due to high winds and rain likely to impact train travel”. The rail firm has issued “Do Not Travel” warnings for links from Cumbria to Manchester airport, Leeds to Carlisle and Leeds to Lancaster and Morecambe.
The many thousands of passengers whose LNER trains to and from London King’s Cross were cancelled on Friday can use their tickets at the weekend – but will find that planned engineering work between Peterborough and the capital will make journeys slower and more complicated.
Many rail lines in the southern half of Britain were blocked at various points on Friday. Damage to the overhead electric wires between Wolverhampton and Stafford closed a key stretch of the West Coast main line for time. Fallen trees blocked lines between Derby and Sheffield, Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury and Exeter and Plymouth.
Ferry
Caledonian MacBrayne, the ferry operator for the Western Isles, cancelled all its sailings on Friday and is keeping many ships in port on Saturday morning. The company says: “Due to the impact of Storm Eowyn, when it is safe to do so, checks will be carried out at our ports and on our vessels to ensure there are no risks to customers, our staff or our crews to resume services.”
All Saturday sailings between Kennacraig on the mainland and Islay are cancelled “due to damage caused by Storm Eowyn at both at Kennacraig and Port Ellen ports”.
Between Ullapool and Stornoway, “all sailings on this route remain at high risk of disruption or cancellation at short notice”.
On the Irish Sea, all P&O Ferries sailings between Cairnryan in southwest Scotland and Larne in Northern Ireland were cancelled up to the midnight departures.
Stena Line sailings between Holyhead and Dublin resumed in late afternoon on Friday and are expected to keep to schedule on Saturday.
