Newton's Optic: Dublin airport is proving the ideal setting for a magnficent display of political acrobatics, writes Newton Emerson.
Tánaiste Mary Harney has insisted that any new extension of Dublin airport must be built and run exclusively by the Progressive Democrats. The proposal is in line with a long history of political control over Ireland's airports, most notably at Shannon De Valera and Knock-Knock Joke International.
"Only the PDs are fit to run 'Pier D'," explained Ms Harney yesterday at the launch of her aviation policy document Gangway for Jumbo.
"Nobody knows better than us how to manage a terminal situation."
Plans for the new facility, which will only serve delayed departures, include economic baggage-handling, no immigration and a much bigger control tower than anyone really expected.
Business class is well catered for and special provision has been made for corporate jets, although discourse on the concourse has not resolved discord over Concorde. Architects for the scheme, Adam, Smith and Friedman Incorporated, have devised an elaborate, yet surprisingly lightweight, structure resting on classical foundations and topped off with a smart observation lounge.
"We have had no disagreement with the clients at all," said a company spokesman yesterday. "The Progressive Democrats instinctively understand the experience of waiting to take off."
However there are still serious problems on the artificial horizon. Airport workers are unhappy with several aspects of the proposal, such as the requirement to work and the irrelevance of their happiness, indicated by Michael McDowell's recent denunciation of Siptu as "the wrong kind of unionists". Mr McDowell has also accused pilots of "flapping" and air-traffic controllers of "plotting".
BudgetAir boss Michael Budget says the proposal is everything he could ask for and that this doesn't go far enough. But the biggest threat to the viability of the new terminal is competition from the Fianna Fáil-run terminal next door.
"Only Fianna Fáil really understands the plane people of Ireland," Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told Cabinet colleagues just before two other Cabinet colleagues arrived for a Cabinet meeting yesterday.
"The Progressive Democrats can't possibly match our duty-free expertise, multi-storey telling and sophisticated cheque-in facilities."
Mr Ahern has good reason to be confident. With a proven capacity to handle five million people year after year, Fianna Fáil's Terminal One is the national air movement. Opened in 1926 at a cost of 5,000 lives it originally served just a single destination but soon offered many different routes to that single destination before eventually offering many different destinations as well. Development kept pace with demand until the mid-1980s when tens of thousands of people suddenly realised that they couldn't leave Ireland fast enough. This problem was temporarily solved by speeding up all the escalators however there is now little doubt that the country needs an alternative.
"It's overcrowded, noisy and expensive," said one disgruntled passenger yesterday, "but what choice do you have if you want to get anywhere?"
Ensuring that passengers have a choice of terminals, but do not choose the other terminal, is the dilemma facing Fianna Fáil as it seeks to take Irish aviation forward into the 1970s.
To accomplish this, the Taoiseach has implemented a shrewd two-step plan aimed at delivering the choice of one option, despite giving every appearance of winging it. Step one involved holding everybody up for three years to generate an extra €10 billion from the long-stay car-park. Step two involved spending this windfall on tea and sandwiches for anyone with airside clearance and a grudge. Initial results are most impressive.
Approval for the new terminal is already conditional on conditions being exactly the same as in the old terminal. Other requirements may include stopping the stopping of the Shannon stop-over, linking work at the airport to work on the airport link, and partially privatising a part of Aer Lingus, which is in urgent need of fresh investment to replace its ageing fleet of stewardesses.
"To accommodate Fianna Fáil we may have to add a bureau de no-change and more traditional customs," confirmed a spokesman for the architects yesterday. "Fortunately the Progressive Democrats instinctively understand that as well."
But despite seeing their flight of fancy diverted before it has even left the ground, the Progressive Democrats remain in fairly good spirits. "This is what it means to do business with Bertie," explained Ms Harney.
"You stand by for a cancellation, wait for an announcement, line up to empty out your pockets then discover that your seat's been reserved for somebody else. You just have to accept it. You see, the number one priority at any airport must always be dealing with hijackers."
Newton Emerson is editor of the satirical website portadownnews.com