LAST UPDATE | 1 Apr 2022

THE GOVERNMENT HAS set up a daily crisis management team in response to security queues at Dublin Airport.

In a meeting today involving the Dublin Airport Authority (daa), Minister of State for Transport Hildegarde Naughton was briefed on measures, such as additional overtime, the additional opening hours of security lanes, and enhancing communications with passengers in the face of the growing waits. 

The authority chief executive Dalton Philips also told the Fine Gael TD of redeployment of staff to support queue management and ensure better presentation for security screening for its operation of the airport. 

It comes on the back of calls from Ryanair, which earlier today demanded that the Department of Transport  convene an emergency meeting between State organisations, airlines and the Dublin Airport Authority over recent security queues that caused some passengers to miss their flights. 

Reports from last weekend showed some hours-long security queues at Dublin Airport. Similar instances of lengthy wait times have been reported in recent weeks. 

The authority has recruited an additional 100 security staff and have plans to recruit nearly 300 more, according to a Department of Transport statement released this evening. 

The statement said Naughton has established “a daily crisis management meeting” regarding the security queues as well as meeting with the CEOs of Aer Lingus and Ryanair and the CEO designate of the IAA regulator to get a broader assessment of the issues being experienced. 

“DAA reported an improvement in the queue times from last weekend, but excessive times were still experienced by passengers at peak times,” a spokesperson for the minister said.

“The Minister was assured that Dublin Airport continue to work closely with their airline partners through the appropriate channels.” 

The department said it will continue to monitor the situation over the coming days and weeks and will engage with daa daily. 

Ryanair request

Ryanair had requested an “urgent crisis meeting” of the National Air Transport Facilitation Committee (NATFaC) to develop solutions to this issue. 

This committee coordinates facilitation activities between departments, agencies,  other State organisations related to aviation, airports and airlines.

NATFaC meetings are held twice a year with additional meetings “convened when necessary”, Transport Minister Eamon Ryan said last year.  

In a statement today, Ryanair called on Minister Ryan to hold an emergency meeting to implement emergency measures in an effort to avoid further queues.

The budget airline said it believes the queues will occur again this weekend and over the Easter holidays later this month. 

A Ryanair spokesperson said people going through the airport “cannot endure more weekends where thousands of customers suffer queue delays of 1 or 2 hours, causing many to miss their scheduled flights”.

The Dublin Airport Authority said there are a number of reasons for the delays.

Philips said 15,000 more passengers than they had anticipated have been travelling through Dublin Airport daily. This is 30% more than they had expected. 

He told RTÉ radio’s News at One yesterday that they are “grappling to deal with this very high demand at a time when the labour market is incredibly tight”. 

Recruitment for security workers is “incredibly difficult” for several reasons including more rigorous background checks, Philips said.

He said Covid-19 is also still impacting staffing numbers. 

“We apologise unreservedly. It’s not what passengers should expect from Dublin Airport and we are not happy with the situation,” Philips said. 

The daa advised anyone travelling through Dublin Airport in the days and weeks ahead to arrive at least two hours before short-haul flights and three hours before long-haul flights. 

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications will visit Dublin Airport on Monday to meet with the daa.

Committee Cathaoirleach Kieran O’Donnell said discussions will focus on the “substantial time-delays experienced by outgoing passengers getting through security checks, which has unacceptably resulted in some even missing their flights”. 

“We will be asking questions of daa management as to why these security related passenger delay problems were not foreseen and planned for earlier,” the TD said in a statement.

“Furthermore, the Committee will be seeking an update on the effectiveness of the short-term alleviation measures already implemented to date and a detailed outline of the further measures they plan to introduce to ensure these severe passenger delay difficulties are resolved quickly.”

With reporting by Eoghan Dalton