The Army is to be stood down at Dublin Airport later this month after being put on standby to deal with any repeat of chaotic queues which led to more than 1,000 passengers missing flights on a weekend in May.
Operator the DAA said it has not sought an extension for the Defence Forces to remain ready to assist the depleted staff numbers at the airport beyond an original deadline of August 15th.
Kevin Cullinane, DAA’s head of communications, said there has been no need to call on the Defence Forces for help since it was put on standby — following an intervention by the Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan — on July 6th.
“We can confirm that the agreement in place with the Department of Defence is due to expire on August 15th and at the time of responding DAA has not requested any extension,” he said on Thursday. “While the Defence Forces are trained for vehicle checkpoint duty and have been on standby since July 6th, DAA has not had reason to call on their services.”
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Mr Cullinane said DAA is making “good progress” in cutting the amount of time passengers take to negotiate security screening at Dublin Airport. He said 99 per cent of passengers got through security in under 30 minutes in the last week of July and 100 per cent did so in 45 minutes. He linked this to “phenomenal efforts” by staff and the “ongoing recruitment of new airport security officers”.
Staffing levels
“Since October 2021, we have added almost 400 new security staff, including around 150 through June and July, meaning our staffing levels are now back to around what they were in 2019,” he added. “We will continue to hire additional staff over the coming weeks and months as we strive to provide our passengers with the level of service that they expect and deserve.”
However, the DAA admits its own reported queue times for security screening only measure the length of wait at a specific departure location inside the terminals. It does not take into account any waiting outside the terminals.
“This means individual passengers can experience queue times that can be either longer or shorter than the time displayed,” according to the DAA’s website.
Dublin Airport is continuing to advise passengers to arrive 2½ hours in advance for a short-haul flight, 3½ hours for a long-haul flight and to add an additional hour if checking in a bag. “This passenger advice remains under constant review and DAA looks forward to reducing the advised arrival times when the time is right,” Mr Cullinane said.