Dublin Airport Authority is celebrating Pride Month. The front of the airport is decorated with Pride flags and rainbow balloons to the extent it feels a bit like you have just walked down the mouth of a kaleidoscope. It is a pity they do not have more pride in their customer experience and celebrate that.
Dublin Airport is usually a pretty poor experience for the traveller. This time – this morning – travelling with my wife and 1- month-old baby, was particularly sub-standard. I am used to travelling in and out of Dublin Airport and have learned to bear it out of necessity. With Eamon Ryan retiring from politics, Dublin Airport must be considered one of his greatest successes. The passenger experience is a growing deterrent to air travellers and if it continues as it is, the 32 million passenger cap may not need to be revised upwards.
My most common complaint is arriving in the late evening on a flight that disembarks its passengers onto a bus, transports you to what I can only describe as a phantom terminal. You alight the bus, walk into what appears to be a terminal building (I recently discovered it is called ‘The South Gates, although it is more like the South Pen), only to be directed through its one hundred metres to the other end, to wait for another bus, which eventually takes you to the farthest end of the real terminal where you then walk the full length of the airport before transitioning through arrivals.
Admittedly, these flights are usually with Ryanair, who probably don’t want to pay Dublin Airport Authority the fees to bring their valued passengers any closer than absolutely necessary. With Ryanair, at least you have a good idea what you are going to get – no frills – and pay accordingly.
But at least they are organised. The Ryanair business model needs to be efficient and effective. T With Aer Lingus and DAA, I am not sure if it is necessarily true. Terminal 1 experiences multiples of the footfall that goes through Terminal 2 yet things run much more smoothly. Why this is so, I do not know.
Before getting to the airport, we were instructed – surprisingly – upon online check-in that our flight was departing from Terminal 1 – the ‘Ryanair terminal’. We parked in the Blue Car Park two and a half hours before departure, and waited a bit more than the fifteen minutes interval we were told buses arrive. A big crowd had gathered and the bus was jam-packed.
Off we went to Terminal 1, passing Terminal 2 on the way. Upon entering Terminal 1 the signs advised us to go to Terminal 2 to check in. An 800 metre walk back from where we came. Bag drop was chaotic. The foyer was packed, with almost no floor staff to assist or to direct. Queues to get a ticket for our bag overlapped with queues to the drop-bag counters. Everyone was frazzled, me included, as boarding time approached. People were queue-jumping in desperation.
One queue was directed to a bag-drop zone with a single operating kiosk. Beside it, a second queue had four operational kiosks. One moved substantially faster than the other. The place was so busy the laggard queuers only discovered the cause of their plight once it was too late to try the other line. Frustrations increasing. One of the groundstaff had to tell passengers to take a photo of their bag receipt because the label printer wasn’t working.
I was visibly annoyed and forthrightly directed a young queue-jumper to join in the correct location. She forthrightly refused with even more colourful language.
Security clearance was not bad. In all fairness, there is new equipment that means you don’t have to unpack all your toiletries and electrical equipment which kept everything moving at a reasonable pace. Although my empty water bottled magically disappeared as it was transported through the machine forcing me to test my honesty at the unmanned two euro water bottle stand.
But once through security, we were directed by another screen that our flight was actually departing from one of the ‘300’ Gates (which to a seasoned traveller is known to be in Terminal 1 – the Ryanair Terminal) so back again we went, another 800m with baby and buggy in tow.
It isn’t the first time this has happened to me in Dublin Airport. To an infrequent Dublin Airport visitor, it feels like just another long walk in airport. There is nothing that obviously informs you that you are walking to another terminal – or one that you had only one hour prior been told you had to get out of.
My water bottle which I hastily emptied down my throat before security so that I wouldn’t have to discard it disappeared going through the x-ray scanners. Vaporised. So I had to test my conscience when deciding whether to put an inflationary 2 euro in the honesty box at the stack of nicely packaged ‘paper’ water bottles. Whether I did or not, I let you surmise. It felt like DAA owed me a bottle…
The ‘300 Gates’ sit in what is a sort if mini-terminal of about 10 gates. Seating is fairly minimal and always crowded. Once we reached the gate, the wife was tired, I was warm, and the baby was hungry. There were no seats free. I spied a couple with carry on bags placed to reserve them as their owners, I guessed, had gone to get some refreshments or do some toileteering.
I asked the woman sitting next to them if she knew whose they were and she proceeded to remove one so that I could sit down. I called the wife over to let her sit and feed the baby, and the lady then removed the second bag. It isn’t unusual in modern society to selfishly occupy an additional seat with bags to avoid having a stranger sit next to you. To occupy two is just plain rude.
Airports are the first and last place a visitor experiences a country. First impressions last, and last impressions can colour what may have been a wonderful (albeit costly) experience, holidaying in Ireland. While the DAA may wish to celebrate Pride Month, the colourful façade does little to wallpaper over the cracks in its customer experience.
David Reynolds
They are only shooting themselves in the foot with this Pride nonsense. Over saturation has left those who just don’t care completely sick of it. It actually feels like a recruitment drive to increase the numbers. If this is the case, then it not about “Pride” but indoctrination.
Of course it is they w
Whatever about Dubklin Arport, Dublin Bus and Dublin Fire Bridade sem to be only able to elicit ads from the Pride lot who, in turn, are funded bythe Government. That means the government is paying to send out divisie political messages political messages in their own vehicles. If they were not divisive, there would be no need for them.
Dublin Airport is supposed to be like a giant dentist’s waiting room, efficient and get the punters in and out quickly unless they are shopping or otherwise spending money. Duty Free is designed to get you to walk through, dropping coin to help defer the big costs all busiensses there and the DAA face,
“Pride” is a distraction from that. Instead of spending money or rushing to where you have to go, you must pause and be bombarded with messages on behalf of the world’s most privileged group.
I am with Martin Luther’s Non serviam on this. Last year, I was in central Dublin early on the morning of the big march and hats and colours were on sale, as if the Pride lot were in the all Irleand. New Irish, Indians in the main were everywhere, using these colours to stake their claim to this land. I couldn’t wait to get out of it.
Even with all this tolerance towards the new horsey set, I cannot see one piece of tangible evidence of what they have contriobuted on the cultuiral front. Seedy bars and dodgy saunas sex joi nts do notcount. Pride? In what? In bald 40 year old Italians playing under 16 girls’ GAA because the rugby lot gave them short shrift?
Complete and utter nonsense, but then again the world is full of this kind of crap these days. This type of nonsense seems to be spreading like a disease that there’s no cure for.
I made a decision to purchase nothing from people who advertise this nonsense and also any company that have foreigners in there advertising. I use to purchase lots of tools in Lidl but left them. I will not visit Ikea
Not like a disease it is the oldest and best disease for destroying humanity and culture as All civilisations
which had gone this route were dead until the first SSM in Amsterdam in 2001 . Since then all the walking
dead because they worship death and decay have been given license to destroy our creative cutlure by
naive idiots in government and elsewhere .
The wonderful Irish culture which is so appreciated by the world over will die too unless there is an awakening.
“Awaiting for approval: Spam”
What the hell does that mean, Gript?
By the way, get your English right.
The verb “await” does NOT take a preposition.
Awaiting your reply….
Giving rainbow-coloured stuff out is normally done to appease unruly children.
As for ‘pride’, think it’s on its last legs.
Normal people are sick of it.
And if you want a sure-fire way for the teenage kids give it the kick in the arse it deserves, have their teachers try to force it on them in schools…
Yup, It’s pretty depressing. But Dublin Airport is not the only culprit. American airports are, or perhaps, the airlines, are getting substantially worse in customer service. I honestly believe that It is not only a result of the difficulty in hiring post-pandemic. I think the government is trying to make the experience horrible for travelers in effort to deter them from considering future air travel. It’s all a part of the green/CO2 reduction agenda.
The ‘pride’ rainbow has six colours and the real rainbow created by God has seven colours. This alone shows what one is dealing with here……
Dublin Airport is a Quare place
Are there any smilies here ?
About 3 weeks ago I noticed that the local rugby club eventually took down the EUkranian flag. I was expecting the posh rugger types to hoist their 2nd favourite pennant, the homosexual flag. I suppose some of those beefy boys love a good scrum (I’ll stick to watching hurling or motogp, thanks). No flag yet !! Maybe the ISIS/Palestine rag in being readied for next month !!
Maybe they have some commonsense or even spriritual sense , as while theres a few who are pro weird,
most will not be and they could lose their true friends .
Goes to show who is running the country,epicentre for the globalist agenda. .Dublin airport should have warning signs for whatever tourists are left coming into the country .it’s a dodgy Dublin now
to finiish they want your children.
How can one month be a decade long?
That’s what 1.6 billion of debt looks like
We’re are the straight peoples flags getting sick of this gay pride shite every year its in ur face everywhere
“Awaiting for approval: Spam”
What the hell does that mean, Gript?
By the way, get your English right.
The verb “await” does NOT take a preposition.
Awaiting your reply….