Government to hold daily crisis meetings over Dublin Airport queues

Irish transport officials will hold daily crisis management meetings as passengers continue to report lengthy queues at Dublin Airport.

The Department of Transport said on Friday that junior minister Hildegarde Naughton had established a daily crisis management meeting to tackle the issue and was closely monitoring the situation.

Dublin Airport has said it is still trying to rebound from the impact of the pandemic and blamed shortages in fully-trained staff working at the country’s busiest airport.

This coming weekend will see thousands of people travelling through Dublin Airport, on the outskirts of the Irish capital.

Ms Naughton met on Friday with the Daa CEO Dalton Philips, the head of the company that manages Dublin Airport.

According to a statement issued by the Department of Transport, the minister was told that extra measures have been put in place including the redeployment of staff to manage queues and improve security screening.

“Daa briefed the Minister on the additional measures that have been put in place, such as redeployment of staff to support queue management and ensure better presentation for security screening, additional overtime, the additional opening hours of security lanes, and enhancing communications with passengers.

“Daa reported an improvement in the queue times from last weekend, but excessive times were still experienced by passengers at peak times.

“The Minister was assured that Dublin Airport continue to work closely with their airline partners through the appropriate channels.”

One hundred extra security staff have already been recruited by the airport, with plans to hire 300 more.

Ms Naughton also met with the bosses of Aer Lingus and Ryanair, as well as the incoming head of the Irish Aviation Authority.

A spokesperson for Ryanair earlier on Friday hit out at the response so far from the Government.

“Ryanair and other Dublin Airport customers, cannot endure more weekends where thousands of customers suffer queue delays of 1 or 2 hours, causing many to miss their scheduled flights.

They called on the Government to take “responsibility to help “solve this short-term staffing problem”.