Calls have been made for the management of Dublin Airport to resign – after a day of queuing chaos caused many passengers to miss their flights.
An emergency meeting between the Junior Minister for Transport and the outgoing Chief Executive of Dublin Airport Authority is set to take place today.
It follows widespread outrage over the lengthy queues outside both terminal buildings yesterday.
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The chaotic scenes led to many angry passengers taking to social media and calling for accountability – with one prominent politician even calling on the Dublin Airport Authority’s management to resign.
Councillor Dermot Lacey said: “After what I have seen this morning, board and senior management of Dublin Airport should resign. I have never seen anything so bad.”
Meanwhile, Senator Lorraine Clifford-Lee called for the bosses to explain the queues.
She added: “The DAA should appear before the Oireachtas Transport Committee this week to explain the fiasco at Dublin Airport this morning.”
She tweeted: “Between this and the chaos of the passport office, people are right to be upset and annoyed. It’s not on.”
And in a damning statement issued on behalf of Minister Eamon Ryan and junior Minister Hildegarde Naughton, the pair said what happened at Dublin Airport yesterday was “simply not good enough”.
They added: “The passenger experience at Dublin Airport is falling far short of the service that our citizens and visitors should expect at our largest state airport.”
They said it was not satisfactory that some people, who are following DAA guidelines, are turning up to the airport for check-in on time, but are still missing their flights.
Their statement continued: “The situation is causing undue stress and potential cost to people, which is simply not good enough.”
Meanwhile, Taoiseach Micheal Martin has said the delays at Dublin Airport are “not satisfactory” and the Transport Minister Eamon Ryan will be engaging with DAA on the issue.
Crowds of frustrated people were seen outside Terminal One and Two of Dublin Airport from early yesterday, right into the afternoon, with gardai having to be called in for assistance to manage the crowds.
Hundreds of passengers were forced to queue for hours outside the terminal buildings as many took to social media to vent their anger at the madness that was unfolding.
Some even complained of a “stampede” outside the airport, as passengers desperately rushed into the building to try and catch their flights.
Then, in a tweet, Dublin Airport conceded that the massive delays were going to result in passengers missing their flights.
It said: “Due to significant queues inside the terminal for check-in, bag drop & security, passengers queueing outside the terminal may not make their flight & may need to contact their airline to re-book.
“We sincerely apologise for the obvious frustration and inconvenience this may cause.” But the delays didn’t stop there, with crowds of people still queuing outside both airport terminal buildings an hour later.
The pandemonium at the airport comes after months of issues – and after the DAA went back and forth between telling passengers to show up early for their flights to backtracking on that warning weeks later.
It also comes as the DAA’s chief executive Dalton Philips is moving on to a new job at convenience food group Greencore, though he remains as the airport authority boss until September. As the chaos continued to unfold yesterday the Dublin Airport Authority’s Head of Communications Kevin Cullinane went on national radio and apologised for the delays.
He said they didn’t have enough staff to deal with the situation.
Speaking on RTE’s This Week programme, he said the DAA was aware that this was going to be a busy weekend with 50,000 passengers departing, and there was “clearly” not enough staff to deal with the numbers.
He added: “We have to put our hands up and say we got that wrong. We wish we had more staff available.”
He also said the DAA wants to make sure “no one is out of pocket” as a result and they will do their best to ensure anyone who has been impacted will be reimbursed.
Mr Cullinane added: “If people do incur costs we ask them to contact our team”.
He admitted that the airport did not have enough lanes open in security for the numbers that presented early this morning. He said the queues grew quite considerably to beyond 500 metres and they had to make a “tough decision” at 10.30am to inform passengers with flights before midday that they might miss them.
Mr Cullinane added: “That caused a compounding effect throughout the morning.”
He said for health and safety reasons the airport put contingency plans in place with queues forming outside Terminal 1.
He said some airlines have been trying to accommodate passengers by allowing them to book flights later today or tomorrow.
However, he defended the staffing at the airport saying “steady progress” is being made and the DAA is “aggressively recruiting”.
He said this has resulted, so far, in 300 additional staff and there will be 370 more security staff on site during the month of June – and said what happened on Sunday was a unique situation. He added: “This weekend it caught up with us.”
He also conceded that people should consider arriving at the airport four-and-a-half hours before a long-haul flight, if they have baggage to check in or any queries to make.
And Mr Cullinane also accepted that this coming weekend will likely be even busier for the airport – with around 100,000 passengers expected to be arriving and departing.
He told RTE Radio 1: “We were trying to gear up. We were aware it was going to be a busy weekend, and next weekend is the Bank Holiday and will be busier. We’re using all available management and staff, frontline and backline, to make sure we have the optimum support.
“But clearly, this morning it wasn’t enough. We have to put our hands up.”
Last month, DAA said it would work to “refine and adapt” its operations after passengers were forced to queue outside during the Easter holiday period.
However, over the past three months there have been several reported incidents of lengthy queues and wait times of several hours to clear security at the airport.
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