Dublin Airport: 200,000 pass through without delay

Having processed close to 200,000 people on the way out of the country over the bank holiday weekend without any significant delays, the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) has expressed cautious optimism it will cope with a summer surge in traffic without a repeat of recent chaotic scenes.

A DAA spokesman said the airport was still operating “within fine margins” and the situation was likely to remain “delicate” until the end of June at least. But media relations manager Graeme McQueen added “it’s been a smooth long weekend at Dublin Airport overall, with almost 200,000 passengers getting through security screening in good time over the four days”.

He said there had been “a good bit of early presentation of passengers at times” since Friday, with people showing up outside of the 2½ hour window for short-haul flights and 3½ hour window pre-departure for long-haul flights, particularly early in the mornings ahead of the first wave of departures.

Mr McQueen accepted that early arrival was an understandable reaction from passengers given the chaotic scenes over the previous weekend when at least 1,400 people missed flights due to long queues at security in both terminals.

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He also noted that on all four days the time it took to pass through security screening was below 30 minutes in both terminals by about 6.30am. “We’re happy with how it’s gone this weekend,” he said

‘Worked well’

He noted that changes at Terminal 1 which now filters passengers based on whether they have a bag to check in “worked well [and] will remain in place for the coming weeks. Due to lengthening queues at [the] bag drop on Sunday afternoon, we did for a short period hold some passengers back from entering the terminal as they had arrived overly early for their flight”.

This week new pre-terminal, queuing areas in the short-term car parks will be fully opened “as a further contingency in the event we need to hold back larger volumes of passengers who arrive too early for flights. The fit-out of these areas will continue this week and they’ll be fully in place and available to us by Friday”.

Mr McQueen said the DAA was continuing to bring new staff in to manage the security areas of the airport and with an expected surge in passenger numbers as the summer season gets under way, the airport will be “operating within fine margins [and] the situation will remain delicate over the coming three [to] four weeks until we have our full complement of staff in place at the end of June”.

He said the DAA was on track to hit a target of having 780 security staff in place by the end of this month.

“We will not stop there either, with no limit set on the number of security staff that we will ultimately hire. Indeed, we will add an additional 100 security officers in July to provide us with additional flexibility for the months ahead,” he added.