Drenched to the skin, diverted, hours late. Welcome to our airports

ON Tuesday, January 12, I was booked to fly to London on the 8.10am flight with Ryanair from Cork airport.

On the previous evening, when two taxi companies refused to take a booking for Tuesday morning because of icy road warnings despite my reliable internet forecast of rain and wind, I decided to drive to the airport.

Leaving the house at 6.45am, I took the 15-minute drive to the long-stay car park where the prices are exorbitant, but better than the short-stay where you nearly need to mortgage the car to pay the charges.

The rain was teeming down and the wind was howling. In vain I searched for the elusive minibus shuttle. Eventually I had to leave my car and brave the elements. I found the only steps down towards the covered short-term car park and 200 metres later, well soaked, I got into the shelter of that car park.

But my ordeal was not over. Then I had to travel along a passageway between this car park and the terminal building which has protection on one side and a roof but which offered no protection against the rain or wind for 300 metres. Any parts of me that I previously managed to keep dry were now soaked and my eyes stung for 15 minutes.

When they were building this white elephant of an airport, why were covered walkways from the car parks not included?

Through security then — a new charge of €1 for the little bag for my toothpaste has been introduced — to wait for my flight. Unfortunately, the incoming plane could not land and had diverted to Shannon, which was where we were now going.

One hour and 15 minutes later, as we waited in the arrivals foyer, there was an announcement that the buses to take us to Shannon had arrived and please board them.

In fact, just one bus had arrived and was parked in the outer lane at the terminal, so now 150 or so people queued to try to board this bus in the torrential rain. Why not have the bus pull up directly outside the terminal — in the inner lane — in adverse weather? Why not ask the first 50 people toboard the first bus? Everyone got soaked in this episode, including young families with children.

Off we go to Shannon, arriving at 12.15pm. Queue to check in (again) and through security (again). Our flight was called at 1.15pm and the plane was at least 300m from the terminal door. The rain and wind was horrific and we had to protect ourselves as best we could while being very careful not to walk into the larger rain puddles en route.

A galling thing about this walk to the plane was that there was a well protected corridor 50m inside and parallel to us. This would have given us great protection but we were cut off from it by a wire barrier. I was now soaked for the third time in six hours and we were still only on the tarmac at Shannon.

Eventually we arrived in London after a pleasant flight, but five hours behind schedule. What’s the solution? Well, I would start by gathering the managers of Cork and Shannon airports with Michael O’Leary (perhaps stripped to their underwear) in front of Cork airport and give them a brisk 10-minute hose shower with cold water from a hydrant.

That might get them thinking about how they might protect their passengers — the very people who keep them all in business — in bad weather.

Visitors to Cork airport would be spared this spectacle as they (including my young grandchildren) can no longer see planes landing or taking off because of yet another woeful design glitch which allows no view of the runways for visitors or people collecting or dropping off passengers.

Why were the totally under-utilised passenger ramps in Shannon not used on that Tuesday? As far as I am aware those in Cork’s very expensive airport have never been used.

Surely, with just a little cop-on, more could be done to protect passengers when the weather is as bad as this. What a shambles.

George Dwyer

Bishopscourt Park

Wilton

Cork