Madam, – Orna Mulcahy’s column (“Treating tourists like sheep at Dublin Airport”, May 15th) has at its core a significant inaccuracy.
Ms Mulcahy protests about passport control at Dublin Airport and mistakenly directs those complaints to the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA). Immigration controls at Dublin Airport are carried out by members of the Garda National Immigration Bureau and the DAA has no role in the operation of those procedures.
The DAA accepts that some arrivals journeys through the current airport facilities are not as pleasant as they should be. That is one of the reasons why the company is investing €1.2 billion to deliver new and improved facilities for passengers and airlines using Dublin Airport. Many new facilities, such as Pier D, have already been delivered. Terminal Two, which is the centrepiece of this programme, will open fully in November 2010 and will transform the passenger experience across the airport.
The column also posed a rather flippant rhetorical question about what the DAA’s 3,200 staff do. For the record, about 2,600 of them work in Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports, while our overseas retail business Aer Rianta International employs about 600 people.
At Dublin Airport we have a three-shift operation, involving many different roles and responsibilities to maintain the airport’s operating licence and to keep Europe’s eighth largest international airport running safely and efficiently 364 days a year. For instance, a team of highly-trained fire-fighters is on-call 24/7 to deal with possible emergencies, while the airport police secure a 3,000-acre airport campus. Several hundred staff screen all passengers and crew passing through security while plumbers, fitters, electricians and IT experts continually service and maintain the buildings, equipment and airfield systems that are essential for the airport to function.
Ms Mulcahy seemed particularly unhappy that she was greeted with "cheesy posters of bankers" in the airport. Like The Irish Timesand other media companies, the DAA uses advertising income to help meet its running costs. Due to its very low airport charges, Dublin Airport is more dependent on commercial income than most other large airports in Europe. Any income earned from advertising, retail activities or parking helps keep airport charges lower than they would otherwise be. – Yours, etc,
PAUL O’KANE,
Director of Public Affairs,
Dublin Airport Authority,
Dublin Airport, Co Dublin.