Dublin Airport bosses to meet ministers as delays branded a ‘national embarrassment’

Queues formed outside the Dublin Airport terminal. Pictures: Colin Keegan

Dublin Airport has been branded a “national embarrassment” following a day of major chaos which saw up to thousands of people queuing outside terminal buildings and hundreds missing flights as a result.

There is now major concern that the bank holiday weekend will descend into similar anarchy with more than 100,000 passengers scheduled to depart.

Airport bosses were forced to issue a grovelling apology to affected passengers who had their travel plans ruined and promised to refund those forced to rebook flights, insisting no one will be left out of pocket.

The Dublin Airport Authority (Daa) management will have to account for the chaos in a meeting with government this morning but were subjected to savage political criticism from ministers and the Opposition alike.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin described the situation as “not satisfactory” and confirming that the Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan will be engaging with the Daa on the issue.

But when asked if the Defence Forces could play a part he said "the Defence Forces have enough to be doing".

Mr Ryan and junior transport minister Hildegarde Naughton expressed their “deep unhappiness” with the lengthy queues.

Ms Naughton, who has special responsibility for international transport, is to meet officials from the Daa this morning to discuss the issues. She is also due to seek assurances that passengers travelling over next week's bank holiday weekend will not face similar problems.

A lack of staff and not enough open security lanes meant large queues began forming from early morning with the airport forced to warn passengers they were likely to miss their flights as a result of the shambles.

The airport was expecting to process 50,000 departing passengers throughout the course of the day.

By mid-morning, the airport was warning that due to significant queues inside the terminal for check-in, bag drop and security, “passengers queueing outside the terminal may not make their flight & may need to contact their airline to rebook”.

Travellers at Dublin Airport faced hours-long delays on Sunday. Pictures: Colin Keegan

Affected passengers vented their fury describing the situation as "chaotic" "shambolic" and "disgraceful" with heated exchanges with staff witnessed throughout the day.

Kevin Cullinane, the group head of communications for the Daa, admitted they had got things “wrong”.

“Significantly, we did not have sufficient staff manning sufficient posts throughout the airport to cope with demand early on and hence queues built up,” he said.

“We clearly did not have enough lanes open in security from early on this morning, for the numbers who presented themselves at that hour of the morning. And that caused obviously a compounding effect.”

Mr Cullinane said there will be an additional 370 security staff in the airport from June.

“We have to put our hands up and say we got that wrong and we wish we had more staff available this morning to rectify that situation quicker than we did.”

Mr Cullinane said the Daa will look to refund anyone who has been adversely financially affected, committing to look at each case on a case-by-case basis.

Anne, Ciara, and Luke McCarthy, were travelling to Florida yesterday when they got stuck in the hours-long queues at Dublin Airport.

“Nobody will be out of pocket for missing a flight today as a results of these queues at Dublin Airport,” he said.

Labour’s transport spokesman Duncan Smith said the problems at Dublin Airport in recent weeks have turned into a national embarrassment.

Sinn Féin spokesperson on transport, Darren O’Rourke has said that security delays at Dublin Airport are a failure of management.

“Referring passengers back to their airlines to rebook is an insult. Passengers are set to miss flights through no fault of their own,” he said.

The Daa are responsible for managing the airport and, as such, it is their responsibility to ensure systems are in place to provide for the timely through-put of passengers.”

Chairman of the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee Charlie Flanagan said the airport’s “hand wringing” is totally unacceptable.

“As a small island nation travel issues are entirely foreseeable. This poor public service is intolerable,” he said.