'Summer of discontent' to continue with 'no back to normal' at Dublin Airport 

Queues at Dublin Airport have been long so far this summer. Picture: Dominic McGrath/PA

Dublin Airport will "not be going back to normal” in the short term, an Oireachtas committee has heard, with thousands of bags still lost and dozens of flights expected to be cancelled in the coming months.

The Oireachtas Transport Committee also heard that the cleanliness of Dublin Airport is “diabolical” as airport chiefs pledged to do more to improve matters.

For over three hours, the committee grilled Aer Lingus, the DAA, and two ground handling companies on the chaos witnessed at the airport this summer and its plans ahead of the busy August bank holiday weekend.

Fine Gael senator Jerry Buttimer said passengers have endured a “summer of discontent” at the country's main airport.

Aer Lingus chief executive Lynne Embleton said her airline had made significant preparations for the summer season and claimed that if airports and ground handlers were as prepared, the issues seen across Europe this summer may not have materialised.

The airline pinned the blame for lost Aer Lingus bags on problems at other airports and issues around passengers transferring flights to or from Aer Lingus for the next leg of their journey.

A number of significant issues were highlighted during the committee meeting, including:

• Over 4,000 bags are currently lost. This includes 1,200 “open cases” with Aer Lingus, 100 with Swissport, and 2,897 from Sky Handling Partners. In the case of Sky Handling, it said the backlog will take at least a month to clear, and “it’s like trying to climb a sand dune at the moment”. Some bags at Aer Lingus have already been lost for up to two months.
• The limits placed on passenger numbers at Heathrow are leading to Aer Lingus cancelling flights to and from Dublin, Shannon, and Cork. Over 40 Dublin flights have been cancelled so far, and over 10 each at Cork and Shannon. This is expected to continue in the coming months.
• Over 700 claims have been made for compensation for missed flights due to the security queue delays in late May. The DAA said “hundreds of thousands of euros" have already been paid out in compensation, and it is prepared to pay out up to €1m.
• In terms of the cleanliness at Dublin Airport, officials said that "work is progressing" with resources to tackle the problem.

Meanwhile, Aer Lingus has called for DAA to revise its advice for passengers to arrive at least 2.5 hours before a short-haul flight and 3.5 hours before a long-haul. Ms Embleton said this was adding to congestion at bag drop and security at the airport.

The DAA emphasised it is in a far more “robust” and “sustainable” situation regarding security queues but said it wasn’t yet ready to revise its guidelines for when passengers should arrive. 

“We need to give a consistent message across all passengers and all the airlines,” DAA managing director Vincent Harrison said, adding they were confident that they could handle passenger numbers this weekend, which is expected to be in line with the last number of weeks.