Dublin Airport: 'No guarantee' delays won't return

There were long queues outside Dublin Airport on Sunday

The operator of Dublin Airport has told the Irish transport minister it cannot guarantee long delays that occurred at the airport last weekend will not happen again.

More than 1,000 passengers missed flights due to queues on Sunday.

About 190,000 departures are expected this bank holiday weekend.

Eamon Ryan met airport officials on Tuesday, when they outlined some of their plans to manage passenger numbers.

Mr Ryan and Minister of State for International Transport Hildegarde Naughton were told that final arrangements for the bank holiday weekend would be communicated within 24 hours.

Airport operator DAA's head of communications Kevin Cullinane said the plans include improving the queue management system, maximising the number of staff available and increasing the number of security lanes open for the weekend and the busy summer ahead.

Kevin Cullinane from the DAA said it is working on plans to prevent lengthy queues over the bank holiday weekend.

However, Mr Ryan said the DAA could not give him a guarantee that there would be no repeat of what happened last weekend.

"They said they cannot guarantee, but they have to. What we said is: 'You have to do absolutely everything in your power, government will do everything to support, so we don't see those scenes again.'"

The DAA has apologised for the weekend issues and said customers would not be left "out of pocket".

Chief executive Dalton Philips and other senior officials are due to appear before the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) transport committee on Wednesday afternoon.

Jerry Brennan, from Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU), said workers were are at "breaking point" and should not be blamed for delays.

"This is not an isolated incident, passenger numbers started to return in great volumes since last December," Mr Brennan told BBC Radio Foyle.

It is understood about 1,000 airport workers have accepted voluntary redundancy since September 2020.

Tim Neill took this image of the Dublin Airport queues as he missed a flight to England on Sunday

The DAA offered voluntary severance to its staff in 2020 as it dealt with the impact of coronavirus travel restrictions.

In April of this year, the Business Post reported that 248 security screening staff at the DAA, which also operates Cork Airport, had taken voluntary redundancy in the previous 18 months.

It comes as one security officer at the airport, who spoke to Irish broadcaster RTÉ, told Morning Ireland that airport security staff had been subject to aggression from some members of the public.

Mr Brennan said there was "no easy solution" but believes increasing wages for advertised jobs at the airport would go some way in attracting people into the industry.

Graeme McQueen, media relations manager for the DAA, said passenger numbers in recent months had "bounced back quicker than even the most optimistic of analysts predicted".

He added that the airport was in the process of recruiting 370 new security staff, with about 300 of these position having already been filled.

Reputational damage to Ireland

Paul Hackett from the Irish Travel Agents Association told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme that Sunday's scenes had caused "reputational damage to Ireland".

"I think last Sunday was, hopefully, a one-off situation. There were only six security lanes open on Sunday but yesterday there were 12," he told the programme.

"The airport lost the pitch very early on Sunday morning and that's what they have to address.

"We have to understand that there are consumers here - there are families, people with mobility issues, older people - none of whom deserve to be treated like that," he added.