With the way the "new" departure road has been working, I fear it's only going to be a matter of a short period of time before an excited child that gets away from it's harassed parents is killed in the shambles that is effectively the only road entrance AND exit to the airport, as all private vehicles are banned from the arrival level.
It was bad before they took out the centre divide, it's far worse now, and made worse by their complete inability to think in 3 dimensions, and separate foot passengers and road traffic. The pedestrian crossing in the middle of the setdown area is a nightmare to use and makes it even more shambolic. The first and essential move would be to get the pedestrian traffic that's coming from the multi storey car park separated from the road traffic. The other would be to make it a LOT easier for traffic that's exiting the airport to avoid the terminal road completely, there is way too much "through" traffic that has no business on the set down road in the first place.
There is no way that the present road system is workable any more. There is no way to fix the unfixable, and as far as I'm concerned, what needs to happen now as a matter of extreme urgency is complex, but doable.
ALL staff parking in the multi storey short term car park should be banned, permanently. NO staff, non negotiable, in that car park. Parking for longer than 24 hours for all other than disabled should be priced to the stratosphere, and ONLY available in the C section above level 3, to free up spaces that would then be available for what it's meant to be, a SHORT term car park. Too many times now, I have been unable to get anywhere even close to the terminal with my elderly frail father in law, and level 4 or 5 in the C section is no good for someone who's mobility is severely limited. He can't be dropped off on departures and left to fend for himself, so I have to park up and escort him in. That's not funny from the C section of the multi storey, and trying to get into the disabled section just doesn't happen, it's always full, and there's never any spaces or even a set down area close to the entrance to the terminal.
A LUAS style tram system from the long term car parks, both DAA and competitive organisations, is needed yesterday. Once it's installed, majority of cars be "encouraged" to drop off and collect from new redesigned and appropriate satellite locations at the external car parks, unless dealing with disabled. Before the tram, how about a drop off zone at the long stay, with free bus transfers, and a sensible way to get in and out of that area, so that the car traffic in the terminal area can be reduced.
DAA needs to be "encouraged", by pressure from people that do know what they are doing, to work to get Dublin operating as the major international airport that it is supposed to be, rather than being Ireland's largest pub and shopping Mall, which is what it seems to be trying to be at the moment.
There are so many areas that need urgent attention that it's no longer funny, and there is a total absence of any forward thinking or even joined up thinking to resolve the ongoing major shortcomings that have been apparent for years. The new runway only being 500 Ft longer than the existing one only serves to indicate just how short term they are in their thinking.
It's not just confined to landside. There are fundamental issues airside as well, related to many areas, such as buses to get passengers in from remote stands. Last time I checked, not long ago, FR, who self handle, did not have any servicable buses to get passengers in from remote stands if they can't get a stand on the A pier. The buses used by Servisair are a disgrace, Aer Lingus are doing their best to get rid of their buses, and Aviance had very few in use. Sky Handling have reasonable quality buses, but they dont handle that many of the larger aircraft that need significant numbers of buses to deal with them. DAA has nothing.
The relatively new C pier was so badly thought out, they can't use all of the jetways at the same time for wide bodies, there's not enough space to get them in, and mornings are now a severe pressure period with the number of wide bodies being operated both by schedule carriers and charter operators. The B & C pier can't cope now with the demand, and we're nowhere near the summer peak, EI are already having to delay departures from SNN to DUB now due to lack of space for them at DUB.
DAA are not checking that the handling agents have sufficient equipment to handle the flights they are contracting for. Some while back, one of the main handling agents were contracted for 7 wide bodies at the same time on a Sunday morning, and they were supposed to be able to do that with 5 high loaders, and 6 sets of wide body steps. That's very hard to do when some of them require 2 sets of steps, and at least 2 of the 7 flights required more than one high loader to meet the agreed turnround time.
It was a regular occurence that one or more of the charter flights were delayed by up to an hour, sometimes more, before the bags were offloaded, which caused huge problems to the arriving passengers waiting for bags.
OK, in theory, that's a handling agent issue, but DAA as the airport operator has a responsibility to ensure that the handlers can meet what they have contracted for.
There's plenty of other issues in a similar vein, but DAA has it's head so far up it's rear where operational issues are concerned, it's not going to change for years to come, if ever.
IF DUB is to meet the requirement to be capable of meeting the passenger AND freight requirement in the next 10 years, some very urgent changes in thinking are needed NOW, and some unpopular decisions are going to have to be made by both DAA and the Government.
The traffic in the airport area is already chaotic at times, and just to make it even worse, the Govt has agreed that a MASSIVE IKEA is going to be built less than 2 miles from the airport, and that's going to suck in even more traffic, especially at weekends. Add a match at Croke Park, and the M1 & M50 are going to be gridlocked for hours. Clever? Not really, but that's the level of forward thinking and planning that we're stuck with. Rail link to the airport. With the way things happen here, I doubt I will see that in my lifetime, and I'm still some way from retiring age, to clarify, the M50 had been route planned before I started working in Ireland in 1986, and the last section was only opened this year, 20 YEARS later, and it's already way overloaded and inadequately designed. The port tunnel is due to open later this year, which will mean massive numbers of HGV's also passing very close to the airport, putting even more pressure on the road system.
There's plenty of other issues, but while the politicians are spending all their time worrying about keeping their seats, and where the next brown envelope is coming from, the serious and contentious issues are ignored, or put off until just after a general election, in the hope that by the time the next one comes, their mistakes will have been forgotten about.
All in all, the chances for a vibrant and functioning airport at DUB are probably about as good as the chances of Ireland winning the World Cup
