Increased staff and extra security lanes keeping queues under control at Dublin Airport
"Most passengers got through security today in between 30 and 45 minutes," Kevin Cullinane said on Friday morning. Picture: Damien Storan/PA Wire
The Daa has said its first early morning wave of departures today has run very efficiently and has pledged that passengers flying over the weekend can have confidence that they well get through check-in on time.
Kevin Cullinane, Group Head of Communications with the Daa, said the airport has had a very busy morning. However, they do not anticipate a repeat of the chaotic scenes of last weekend.
“The first wave of departing flights has gone away very efficiently with people heeding advice to arrive two and a half hours before a short-haul flight and three and a half hours before their long-haul flight.
"Most passengers got through security today in between 30 and 45 minutes. Queue times now are less than 10 minutes in both terminals one and two.
"That is as a result of the increased staff we have deployed this weekend. The extra security lanes of which we were at maximum this morning for those departing flights from 6am. We will be making sure that we continue that right throughout this bank holiday weekend.”
Mr Cullinane said that they have deployed extra staff to help vulnerable passengers at the airport this weekend.
“People will see a lot of people in pink high-vis vests or purple ones throughout. But particularly in the new drop-off area on the other side of the atrium building.
"OCS is our service provider that provides that extra bit of assistance for any passenger who needs it. There is a new reception desk there and they will help, as they always do, anyone who needs extra time, anyone who might need a wheelchair assistant, and anyone who has any additional needs they will be helped through the new process and guided.”
Meanwhile, on the , Air and Travel Editor Eoghan Corry said hopefully staff will be able to keep control of the queues at the airport.
“The big question is how it will work over the weekend because it doesn’t take an awful lot to knock out the arrangements at Dublin Airport as it stands and what happened last Sunday, they lost control of the queues was very, very quickly.”
Mr Corry said some of the thinking behind the holding areas is to put people off the idea of arriving too early.
“That got a really hostile reaction on social media,” he said. “This idea of putting people in holding areas a bit like the cattle marts in the olden days where you are pushed into a side pen and left there until you are brought into play and your flight is about to leave.
“There was a very hostile reaction to it. I suspect a lot of that is just to send out the message. Do not arrive hours and hours early for your flights.”
Tents have been erected outside Terminal 1 as part of contingency plans to manage the large numbers of people travelling.
In the region of 49,000 passengers will fly out of Dublin Airport this weekend.
Daa Media Relations Manager Grame McQueen told that queue times are under ten minutes at Dublin Airport as of 8am on Friday morning.
Mr McQueen said the advice to turn up two and a half hours before short-haul flights and three and a half hours before longer journeys seemed to be helping to create a steady flow of passengers this morning.
Passengers should also factor in an extra hour for the check-in of a bag.
"That is going to make a massive difference. Look we understand why people are anxious. We all saw the scenes last Sunday. We have got a job on our hands to win back trust.
"But if we stick to those times we will secure that nice flow of passengers through the terminal over the course of the weekend.
"It is a busy weekend but the numbers are not too much higher than what we have been dealing with in May and April. I know we slipped up last Sunday but we are confident going into the weekend that we can keep the performance of this morning going."
Mr McQueen added that obviously, they did not have enough staff on the roster last Sunday. However, management has been working all week to rectify the situation.
"The weekend is looking good with a full roster of staff in place. What we tried to do over the week was put in a plan B and a plan C. We now have contingency built into the system.
"We fell down. We have got to make sure if anything goes wrong again that we have a plan B and plan C in place."
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