Air passengers queued for hours to board flights out of Dublin Airport over the weekend - in some cases outside the terminal buildings. In the resultant chaos “well over” 1,000 people missed their flights.
We asked people who had either tried to depart from Dublin airport this weekend or were booked to depart over the June bank holiday weekend to share their experiences with us and below is an edited selection of their responses.
Rachel O’Neill, Co Dublin
Due to fly to Barcelona on Saturday evening. Can’t drop bags the night before as it’s a Ryanair flight. Only option is to arrive 4 hours beforehand and hope the queues move quickly enough that we make the flight. It’s making me really, really anxious.
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Fabrizio Bernardi
Travelling with wife and two children (1 year old and 3 year old). Flight at 6.25am to Sardinia, going to the airport before 4am (waking the little ones at 3am). Bought the fast track for tomorrow (€40-€50 euro for the family). Of course I’m scared of everything: my children in the cold outside the airport, my daughter if she needs to go to the toilet that seems the worst possible place on earth, etc. I’m convinced that actually this will make people go earlier and creating even more problems to a stretched system
Laura Foley
I work for an agency that works with language exchange students. I’ll be in the airport for the summer. After 14 years, I have never seen anything like the mess last weekend. Actually messaged my boss to say I will be retiring if this is what the entire summer will be like.
DAA staff told me that policy changes in the background are not working and they were happy enough to let things unfold as they did so that Management might take stock of the situation. The so called “staffing issue” is a good cover story.
Why not revert to old ways, it worked very well. I hardly experienced delays with students in the past. Usually airlines are helpful but at the weekend no body was being prioritised nor were there any exceptions. Fast track in T2 was closed off for those who have paid for a yearly service, parking was a nightmare as people abandoned cars due to set down being closed with the cues. On the plus side for me, the food has were empty as people had no time to eat. Next week I’ll take a fold up chair!
Deirdre McTernan, Co Louth
We are due to fly from Dublin Airport to Lanzarote with Ryanair next weekend. This flight was originally booked to Santorini pre-pandemic. Due to the lockdowns, we rescheduled to August last year but as the date approached we were unsure if we could fly due to covid restrictions so rescheduled again.
We couldn’t rebook Santorini so far ahead so we had to rebook for Lanzarote. Not a problem as we love it there. We had to pay for all the flight changes as we had booked pre pandemic and couldn’t avail of Ryanair’s no change fees. We are now the proud owners of the most expensive flights to Lanzarote. The total is at almost €1,500 for return flights (when you take all the changes into account). We have just added fast track to the booking today. I did plan on adding a checked bag to the booking this week but daren’t risk a delay at the airport so will just stick with carry on and buy toiletries, sun cream etc. when I arrive.
At the moment, we are planning on leaving Dunleer at about 3.10. This should give us four hours to get through. To be honest, I am thinking of leaving even earlier and have even contemplated changing the booking to later in the summer but I just couldn’t justify spending more money on this booking. We booked everything separately so our hotel and car hire bookings are at risk if we don’t make the flight.
Stephen Buckley
I’m unsure what I should do. They’re saying don’t come too early but come too late and you’ll miss your flight.
Nathan Collier, Co Louth
Flying to Poland on the 3rd of June for a wedding. Flight is not till 9pm but going by the queues you’d want to be there for 2pm to stand any chance of making the flight.
Karl Llewellyn, Co Cork
It is incredulous to me that the go-to solution to long queue times at Dublin Airport is it to add more people to the queue. By simple math, if the airport when preforming at optimum levels can process 5,000 passengers an hour, if you tell passenger to come 3-4 hours before their flight you are inviting 4 hours equal to 20,000 passengers in to your system with no filter for who is taking off in which hour.
Always a disaster in the making! Really makes you scratch your head. What’s the alternative? Digitise the process. Create an app that passengers register their flight on that gives them a 30 minute window to hit the security line.
Those that book early get the perfect 90-60 minute slot before their flight, those late get earlier slots. But DAA gets to control the line to match the forecast resources ( i.e. security lines open on the day).
This app can be linked through an API to all airlines online checking pages to make it pretty seamless. So, instead of passenger losing their mind in a 4 hour line, they can hang out in local parks, shopping centres, fun public spaces until their chosen time confident that they will get through.
If the App was using AI and the airport CCTV infrastructure it could adapt in Realtime time slots for passenger with ‘line times are faster then normal, please arrive at 8.20 for your security clearance’ . You get the idea. How long would this take to build? I work in the development and travel area with @neuroons, so can with some confidence suggest this could be up and running in 30 days. Get started now DAA -change the process.
Seamus Gallagher, Georgia, US
We left Dublin on Saturday, May 28th out of T2. We knew there may be issues with delays and we were advised by our airline the flight was delayed from noon until 1pm. We arrived at T2 around 9.30am. The check in line for the airline was about 15 mins. We went to go up the escalator to go through security, the escalator as closed so we went to the lift and was told they weren’t in operation, then went to the stairs, and also told they were not available. I asked why all the routes to security were shut down and told “they just are”.
We were directed to the escalator at the other end of the terminal. Upon landing on the upper T2, someone was standing at the upper escalator to security and limiting the access to batches of 50 people. We were then told to go to the end of the line, which went all the way on the bridges over the arrivals area to the rental car check in area. We joined the line before it even got to the rental car area as it double backed thru the rental car area.
All this time, there were no announcements telling people what to expect. A couple behind us were on an 11.30am Aer Lingus flight and they joined the line after 10am. We had been at the airport the previous day to pick people up and did not see any lines at that time. All people queueing up were within the upper security queue area.
Everyone in line was in the same boat and so everyone was very stressed out. All the airlines’ boards said “go to gate” but did not declare a new departure time. Having to go through Dublin security and then US security, we had no way to know how long it would take other than the 45 minute wait sign on the upper level of the security area when we got there.
Once through Dublin security, there was no further issue. Just a small announcement would have lowered passengers stress level while queueing for their flights.
Derek Mangan
My flight is next Monday 6th June for myself, my wife, my son (7) and daughter (3). It’s an evening flight so hoping to go to the airport 4 hours before departure time. Any longer and the kids would go into meltdown with all the queueing. It’s a disgrace for it to happen once that people miss flights but this is dragging on for months.
Marie Hynes, Co Dublin
Myself, husband and 2 kids going to Paris. We have booked airport car park so need extra time to park too. Thinking we need to be there at least 5hours in advance for a 8.50am flight which is crazy!
Patrick Fahy
Went through last Wednesday 25th for a flight to Paris. It was an evening flight and the airport seemed rather quiet. Took us an hour to go through security which snaked all the way to and past the check in desks closest security. No sign of any real signage which was ok for us but non native English speakers were confused. Then you see that half the scanning aisles were closed. There was also some staff standing idle, not sure of the qualifications for the scanning but surely those people would be better served doing that.
Alison Egan
A few pals have booked to go see Abba, the Show (Abbatars) in London on Sunday - the afternoon/matinee performance - the only tickets we could get during a priority pre-sale last year. Three pals flying from Dublin at 8.50am on Sunday morning to Gatwick - aiming to get to airport for 5.30am. One pal flying from Cork for her 10am flight, which she will make easily. If we miss Abba not only will it cost the price of the flight, but the price of the expensive tickets that were bought months ago, and a lifetime of memories....no refund will solve it. Do I drive to Cork and fly from there? Is 3.5hours beforehand too late? We will have no luggage as we are flying back that evening - so if we miss the flight having been up and ready for this since 4,30, never mind the preparation to dress up as Abba, Dublin Airport will not be forgiven - you had one job!!
Debbie Gahan, Co Dublin
I was due to take a flight for 9.15am arrived at airport at 6.15am was in the queue for security for four hours, got through security at 10.15am but missed the flight only to be told to go back out rebook with Ryanair and start the queue all over again. Got out, four hour wait for the ticket desk and then flights gone for the day. I was put on another flight for next day but it didn’t suit as it was to collect a child to bring him back yesterday.