Dublin Airport New Runway/Infrastructure.

The problem with a public consultation is that the only people likely to bother responding will mostly be the anti airport lobby groups

The cap was brought in as a condition of planning for T2 at the explicit request of Fingal County Council. This is fairly well documented, you should do some research on it before talking about how the DAA "can't be prohibited from expanding by politicians" so definitively. Because DUB has been very literally prohibited from expanding as much as it could have by (stupid) decisions made by politicians.

20mins for security is no great. Maybe dublin just sets a lower expectation if that your main airport. If you only fly DUB-LHR you might think that's just the way it is and Dublin is great (as LHR is a disaster). But there are many airports around the world that are much easier to get through and handle much larger numbers.

Sydney is 50m. Singapore is 70m. Dubai is 90m. Anytime I've flown through either it was a breeze to get through.
In Singapore the only time I queued was boarding - and that was fast tracked though).

A biggest faster security, more check-in and better use self bag drop will make dublin a lot better. It's great to see it busy, and that means it can be upgraded sooner.

The term quoted was "under 20 mins". I think you missed the under word. Do you want every minute value broken down? I flew 2 weeks ago. The time on the screens said the current time through was 7 minutes. I don't know if it was as I didn't time myself but it was quick enough.

You should bookmark this, and come back to it in 10 years time, when work starts and people start protesting "there was no consultation, we knew nothing about this!!!!"

if they say under 20 minutes, that means that make people took close to 20 minutes. Otherwise it would have been under10 minutes. If you couldn’t figure that out I’m not sure what to tell you.

There’s no suggestion that it’s always busy or a mess. Just that it often is. Not difficult to understand.

Which as you already said means that the limit should be a daily limit and not a yearly limit. A yearly limit could mean the airport eventually goes above capacity on high peak summer days while severely restricting slots on days of lower profits/losses midweek in winter for example. It's not fit for purpose.

The airport handled the summer extremely well and showed it's well capable of increasing numbers. Most of the issues are not infrastructure related but actually staff shortages causing delays. However the more people that come through the more the airport is able to upgrade the infrastructure to improve the overall experience and build for 10, 20 and even 30 years from now.

the point is you don’t need a blunt 32m passenger cap to keep the same standard of service from Dublin. The IAA and ACL reports issue slots to airlines based on available infrastructure at the airport taking all constraints into account. A perfect example of this is Emirates applied for a third daily slot in the morning for next summer. The report published clearly demonstrates the morning slots were not granted at the requested time but were granted for an hour or two after when the infrastructure at the airport would be able to accommodate them. These slots probably won’t work for Emirates as the timings are too far out from what was originally requested. It did stop the airport operating above its capacity for that aircraft type at that peak time but also demonstrated the airport was able to handle the additional wide body at a later time that day. A passenger cap doesn’t and will never do that. If the passenger cap was lifted tomorrow, there still wouldn’t be a free for all as airlines need to get slots to operate flights!

Well having used Dublin 13 times so far this year both in T1+T2 the average time through security has been about 10 minutes max and the queues are by and large managed well by the DAA staff. Just to not the majority of times I travelled would be considered peak times. Some observations in my opinion would be no issue with security queues or amount of lanes available, definitely pressure on the food outlets post security but in fairness a lot of upgrade work ongoing. The pinch point I would see are the boarding gates connected to the various piers and the delay for arriving planes awaiting gates etc. The proposed projects in the current planning applications should address the pier/gates issues. Could Dublin handle 40 million at present maybe not quite, certainly 36/37 million would be feasible. The whole planning situation around large infrastructure is certainly painfully and long winded to put it mildly and lets not forget a huge amount of the projects are upgrades, safety and sustainability which don't add capacity but are needed just as much. An obvious additional will be the metro link but like the planning process that's on the government. Can the DAA improve the experience at Dublin yes but at present they're on the right track and compared to even 2 years ago the signs are promising. Having gone through LHR, CDG, Madrid, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Manchester and Malaga Dublin is not too bad in my opinion.

But those are not planning issues or relevant to the cap (unless the planners are now moving into consumer protection, which even for them is a gross over-reach)

As I says, I flew a lot in October. Twice from Dublin (also landed there twice). Not a huge sample, but I can I can only base my opinion on my experience. YMMV.
In general arrival is always fine. Customs and immigration and much faster in Dublin than other places. Departure not so good. Check in was a mess (EI). They have the self-drop equipment that works well at other airports, but it didn’t seem to alleviate any queuing in Dublin. Security was also really slow and back up. Midweek afternoon.

It’s not the worst, as I keep saying. LHR is a mess. I’d rather Dublin any day. But there no way can do 40m. I would guess 10% over the design limit is manageable, beyond’s that limiting aspects of infrastructure starts to struggle too much.

Also bear in mind that an airport designed for 40 has the same redundancy too. So that airport could be pushed by the same amount roughly.

My apologies

In post #9813 above you said "if they say under 20 minutes, that means that make people took close to 20 minutes. Otherwise it would have been under10 minutes."

It was a bit poorly constructed so I interpreted that as you saying that most people took close to 20 minutes. As that is not what you say you meant, what did that sentence mean?

Agree on those three too. Gate seating/amenity is poor. I think most wait elsewhere. I mentioned the lack of lounges above too. Inbound to Dublin via LHR is painful. But opposite direction is infinitely better - wade through the duty free/food court and park up in the lounge. LHR has some of the best.

If AerLingus were better affiliated, there might be an alliance will to operate one in Dublin. But a paid lounge is prob most likely.

Prehaps I misunderstand what you mean. But how are they not planning issues?

If an airport (or any large development) was proposed with zero retail/food/court/passenger seating/etc. That's absolutely something that the planning authority should pull them up on. That's not in any way an over reach.

Came through dublin airport other day it's the most strict and rude security out there same day passed through CDG no problem and courteous. I travel through 6 other airports this year and no hassle

I have hand baggage with electronics some liquid meds 1 year b4 no problems now it's a big deal I abide by the rules but stopped 3 times this year each they found nothing wrong.

Never have to show prescription letters anywhere else

I have no choice but to accept their **** service Daa is a **** show needs to be reformed they are a bad service provider and not a good look for our economy.

If they are to approve plans submitted, that obviously makes it a planning issue (as you acknowledge). But what you maybe are overlooking is that its not just "initial" plans that are submitted. New piers, extensions, new terminals all need planning permission. Those would includes the amenities that are provisioned.

Planning Authorities don't try to review on an ongoing basis. But DAA have applied to expand the airport. That application puts it back into a Planning Authority's scope for review. That is also why planning approvals limit approvals, so that further commercially development is required to resubmit plans.

If a new extension was to say increase capacity but neglected retail, F&B, amenities etc. That should absolutely be flagged - this is the only opportunity, there is no ongoing review - as you said.
FWIW, I highly doubt DAA are converting Food and Beverage outlets for other retail. F&B is extremely lucrative. But not every retail unit is provisioned for it.

I have often found the security in Dublin most courteous especially compared to other airports (UK regional ones especially)

As with any airport, the experience very much depends on the day (and probably the phase of the moon too).

I've been practically yelled at in Dublin about electronics in my bag, yet if the person had taken the time to glance in front of them they'd have seen that I had just pushed a tray with a laptop and an iPad in it towards the belt.

That being said, I have a lot of sympathy for security staff. They do a repetitive and boring job, often at very antisocial hours, and they spend a good portion of the day telling people things that they don't want to hear. Honestly, it's amazing that they are polite and friendly as often as they are.

if you build a house you submit plans, planning is approved, what you ultimately do with the inside of the house is entirely up to you as long as it is to code and doesn’t impact the outside view of the building. If you build a terminal you submit plans with “commercial use” or “retail outlet” on certain sections of it. What it is ultimately used for is up to you and who you can sell/lease that space to.

The planners have absolutely nothing to do with how many burger bars or ladies knickers shops are in the terminal or pier, they will only care that you have said that space would be used for retail or commercial use and it’s to code.

Imagine having to go to the planners to move your TV around the sitting room, essentially what you are suggesting the planners should have power over.

Funny enough my one and only experience with the TSA in Seattle was excellent. I had an large bottle of sunscreen in my bag that I'd forgotten about and the two of us were laughing by the end of the security check. Didn't expect it at all.

Yep people have short memories…

Been covered multiple times. The cap was arbitrarily set by FCC. But following this, the actually AFC design was completed with that in mind.
[quote]You have that sequence of events backwards lads. Sure, the cap originated with road access, as that was seen as a limiting factor. But the origin is irrelevant. After the cap was set by the grant of planning permission. The terminals were then designed and constructed to that capacity. T2 was 2007-2010 and was designed as a 15m Pax terminal. Pier D was designed for 10m, etc.[/quote]

T2 being was designed to be a 15MAP terminal is widely documented. T1 obvious wasn’t built at a single time. There are part hat can handle 40m now. The runways will be serviceable far past that. But a system is only as capable as its weakest point. The airport is close to capacity at peak times imo. It could hang he more than 32m, and should be bumped up next year. But nowhere near 40m at a decent standard.