What are the alternatives to using Dublin Airport?

The good news for air passengers seeking to travel to or from Ireland this summer, and to avoid lengthy queues at Dublin Airport, is that there are alternatives. The bad news, however, is that these are somewhat limited.

Ireland is relatively well served for a small island with five international airports — Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Shannon and Ireland West.

Dublin, though, dwarves the others even when passenger numbers are combined. In 2019, the last year before the Covid-19 pandemic seriously limited air travel, 32.7 million people travelled through Dublin Airport out of a State total of 38.1 million. Belfast International Airport, the second biggest on the island, saw 6.2 million passengers pass through that year.

Routes to the greatest number of destinations are also on offer from Dublin, with 44 airlines flying to 180 locations. It is the only Irish airport with direct flights to US cities such as Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles, to Toronto and Vancouver in Canada, and to the Middle East, from where many people travel on to Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

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Belfast has intermittent problems as well. During the Easter break there were reports of security queues up to an hour long. On Tuesday last, there were similar scenes to the Dublin queues with passengers complaining of early morning “bedlam” at security gates. The airport said these were short-lived and had reduced by 6.30am. A spokeswoman said that during April, 98 per cent of passengers were processed through security in under 15 minutes.

Belfast International Airport has flights to 50 destinations and added flights during the summer to Kos in Greece, Menorca in Spain and Verona in Italy along with a Virgin Atlantic service to Orlando in the US.

Unlike Dublin, Cork has no capacity issues. A spokesman for Cork Airport said all passengers transit through security screening in 30 minutes or less, though it advises people to turn up 60-90 minutes ahead of time.

Shannon Airport has a summer schedule of 26 destinations in 11 countries with new flights to Marseilles in southern France, Malta and Barcelona-Girona in Spain. It developed a new screening service in October last year which ended the restrictions on carrying liquids at volumes of more than 100ml. Electrical items, laptops and tablets no longer have to be separately screened and can remain in cabin bags, which means fewer trays per passenger. You can fly transatlantic with flights to New York and Boston. In response to the queues at Dublin Airport, one woman tweeted: “Flew from Shannon Airport this morning — absolutely no queues and flew through security. Everything can also stay in your bag including phones; liquids and laptops. Hassle free.”

Passengers are nothing if not complimentary of the service at Ireland West, the smallest international airport.

“It took me 4 minutes from the car park in Ireland West Airport to duty free yesterday for my flight to Liverpool. In fairness the staff apologised for the delay,” one tweeted on Sunday when the queues at Dublin Airport were at their worst.

Ireland West airport has flights to 19 destinations across the UK and mainland Europe this summer. The airport boasts that queue times, such as they are, range from four minutes at non-peak times to 25 minutes at peak times and that’s from entering the building to clearing security. Peak time at Ireland West this summer is Saturday 8am-10am; during most other times of the week it ranges from four to six minutes.