Passengers stuck on planes and homes without power

About 1,500 homes and businesses in Northern Ireland remain without power as a result of damage caused by Storm Ashley on Sunday. Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) said it has restored power to more than 10,000 customers after outages. Meanwhile, passengers were left on board airplanes at Belfast City Airport for a number of hours after landing due to Storm Ashley. The airport was unable to bring steps to the aircraft due to the high winds and planes had to queue to pull up to a land bridge so people could disembark. "We were able to fly over in a storm from Alicante to Belfast and landed safely but we can't get off the plane," Tracey Godfrey from Comber told BBC News NI. On social media Belfast City Airport said the safety of passengers and staff was of the utmost importance. "The crew have been brilliant in updating us, but we're number four in a queue of five planes," added Ms Godfrey. Eamonn O'Sullivan, was also on the flight from Alicante to Belfast. He described the landing as "very, very difficult" with a lot of turbulence. After landing, passengers were kept on the runway for almost three hours. A flight from Bristol to Belfast International had to abort its landing and divert to Manchester airport. About 60 flights due to land or depart at Dublin Airport were cancelled on Sunday, with 27 incoming aircraft performing go-arounds and 28 opting to divert to other airports. The Met Office had issued an amber warning for western counties until 20:00 BST.<br/>