DUBLIN AIRPORT:THE DISRUPTION at Dublin airport yesterday was on a totally different scale to that which occurred during the Icelandic ash cloud crisis in April and May.
There was much more of an air of desperation about the place – given the time of year – as people hoping to be reunited with family and friends abroad, or travelling on holidays, gradually realised they weren’t going anywhere.
By mid-morning, the airport was open for business although a number of flights were delayed – in some cases due to disruption at airports abroad – but then the snow started and it just kept coming down.
The queues at ticket desks and the list of cancelled or delayed flights began to grow. Flights were showing delays of up to two hours, with some cancellations. People were still holding out hope of getting on a flight.
Newly opened T2 was extremely quiet but Terminal 1 was crowded shortly after lunchtime, with the area around the Ryanair and Aer Lingus ticket desks the worst affected.
Dublin Airport Authority staff did their best to corral the queues but the numbers of people were just too great. Queues for check-in desks crossed each other and people mowed through the lines with wheelie suitcases. At least one person in a lengthy ticket-desk queue was crying with frustration.
Carla Creighton from Dublin and Pete Francis from Manchester spent about eight hours in the airport on Monday and were already at a boarding gate when their Ryanair flight was cancelled. They left the airport due to the cold and said they had spent about €60 on taxis on Monday and yesterday. They were hopeful of getting on a flight by lunchtime but said they would refuse to pay over and above what they had already spent on their cancelled flights.
The DAA announced the closure of the airport until at least 5pm, with all incoming flights either diverted or ordered to stay at their departure point. Then the closure stretched to 8pm and 9pm and still the airport was jammed with people hoping to fly.
Regular announcements informed staff that Aer Lingus had ceased all check-ins.
Valerie Polydorou, examining the departures board, was on her third attempt to get out of Dublin airport. She was trying to get home to London via Gatwick, but all the flights were cancelled. She hoped to ring her brother to ask him to collect her from the airport. “I think I will just get the boat and train in future,” she said.
Later in the afternoon, the queues in departures were better managed, but still horrendously long. There also appeared to be more airport authority customer service staff dealing with queries.
Ciarán and April McElhinney and their young children, Ross and Katie, from Cork city, had checked in for a flight to Chicago yesterday morning. They had cleared US immigration when their flight was cancelled. Their documentation for the US was duly taken back and they were sent back to the departures area.
“There has been absolutely no dialogue with the passengers here today,” Mr McElhinney said.
He and his family had travelled from Cork and stayed in Dublin on Monday night to give themselves enough time to ensure they didn’t miss their flight.
“We checked out of Bewley’s this morning. Check-in was a breeze, we were checked in within half an hour or 40 minutes.”
April McElhinney said there was no Aer Lingus representative telling passengers where to go or what to do, while Ciarán McElhinney said he first of the cancellation from his brother-in- law in Chicago. He said people were queuing only to “abuse the poor unfortunate individual at the top which is also wrong”.
Aer Lingus and Ryanair made regular announcements urging passengers whose flights had been cancelled to leave the airport and rebook online using their original reservation numbers, but not everyone was in a position to do that.
One older woman wheeling two big cases was seeking help from an airline representative, who did all he could do: he directed her into one of the growing ticket- desk queues but said she really needed to try to rebook online.
“I don’t know how to do that,” she told him; her family had booked her ticket. “You must have someone at home . . .?” he asked.
By about 5pm, there wasn’t even the option of queuing at a ticket desk in the hope of getting something for today or tomorrow. All over the airport, people were telling each other tales of fully booked flights until at least Christmas Day, of full hotels and of BBs in Swords that had no running water.
The Aer Lingus man on the Tannoy sounded almost desperate in his appeal: the airline was unable to carry out rebookings at the airport due to the “unprecedented” level of cancellations, he said. “We would really appreciate if you would just leave the airport and rebook online.”