WITH last week’s ‘Beast from the East’ causing weather disruption across the country, Prestwick Airport were called upon to deal with 27 diverted flights.

Glasgow Airport had to suspend their services after the Met Office released both amber and red warnings when the country was covered in snow from Wednesday, February 28 through to Saturday, March 3.

Working ‘tirelessly’ to overcome what has been the ‘worst snowfall’ in the airports history, they had a large number of delays and cancellations.

Prestwick Airport, however, was unaffected by the weather, allowing operations and services to be diverted to its runway and aside from helping thousands of Ryanair scheduled services, they handled 27 diverted flights, brining by 3,700 passengers.

Two flights from Dubai International Airport to Glasgow Airport was diverted to Prestwick Airport, including the Emirates flight EK027 and EK025 and Ryanair FR8005 from Alicante, also arrived at on Prestwick’s airfield – transport was then arranged for passengers to be taken to Glasgow Airport.

Jules Matteoni, Prestwick Airport’s Operations Director, said: “We are one of the few airports in the UK to have remained open during this exceptional period of adverse weather.

"It’s been an extremely busy couple of days but the whole team has worked hard to handle additional passengers and the challenges which a high number of diversions can present.

“We’ve been enabling Scots to reach sunnier climates in places such as Alicante, Malta and Malaga while also allowing people to get home whenever there simply were no other options.

"Prestwick Airport is undoubtedly an important asset in Scotland’s transport network, fully equipped to deal with airlines of any size even during periods of severe weather.”