Madam, - Media reports of hundreds of passengers queuing on Sunday at Dublin airport are incorrect. At midday there were thousands in line to get through the security gates.
I was in that queue for nearly an hour and was not even half-way to the end when I asked my travelling companion to go back to the airline desk and change to a later flight as we had no chance of being on time for the flight we had booked. One of the airline staff took us out of the queue and brought us through a staff entry which was being used as an emergency security point. Even then we only made the flight because it was delayed for 15 minutes.
The claims that "several" passengers missed their flights could not be correct either. In my immediate vicinity there were five people who had already missed their flights and who were hoping to be reassigned once past the barrier.
I would say hundreds of passengers had to be reassigned or were stranded altogether.
There could have been serious casualties if any sort of alarm had gone off. And the people in charge of Dublin airport want another terminal which will allow them to screw up even further? What on earth will they do in the busy months of June to August - advise passengers to camp overnight? - Yours, etc.,
JIM FINAN, Curragh, Castlebar, Co Mayo.