The DUB Passport/Immigration Queue Thread

Fred Swanson

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JCX BXC

Fred Swanson wrote: »

I can see either an Irish or CTA citizen taking this to court. Might be the only thing that kicks the DAA into action.

I don't, CTA has been around for a long long time and DUB have always put everyone through passport control.

Orion

Einstein A. Gogo wrote: »

The problem is that they insist on checking all passports from the UK which is totally unnecessary given it's the common travel area and passports are rarely checked in the UK for arrivals from Ireland. If they took this out of the equation it'd greatly speed up passport control in Dublin. Simples!

What if you don't bring your passport with you? Not all airlines require passport id for flights between UK/Ireland - Aer Lingus for example (I know they're T2). BA don't require one either - they're T1 I think.

JCX BXC

Orion wrote: »

What if you don't bring your passport with you? Not all airlines require passport id for flights between UK/Ireland - Aer Lingus for example (I know they're T2). BA don't require one either - they're T1 I think.

Any ID is accepted for flights from the UK.

Orion

JCX BXC wrote: »

Any ID is accepted for flights from the UK.

I know that - and I've travelled without my passport (admittedly inadvertently - thankfully I had other ID with me that the airline accepted - if it had been Ryanair I was screwed). But the point is why are they insisting on passports for people on UK flights if they are not required?

trellheim

Any ID is accepted for flights from the UK.

Strictly speaking this is not correct in the sense that is the airline requiring ID for boarding the airliner - this is why you show photo ID at the gate ; as an Irish citizen from a CTA journey , I require no ID or any form of identification to enter the state


I must correct a poster above, apologies

DUB have always put everyone through passport control.

. They have not. I used to be dropped straight to the baggage halls, many many times.

They are under no requirement to inspect documents for CTA flights ; this is what is causing the delay. ( or most of it anyway )

Fred Swanson

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JCX BXC

Apologies, I don't remember a time when DUB didn't do that, although DUB wouldn't be my airport of choice for the UK.

When did they allow you straight to the baggage belts?

Fred Swanson

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Spanish Eyes

Is this new "scanning" of passports connected to Interpol or whatever agency detects dodgy entrants?

Or is it optics. I don't know.

But what I will say is, it is mad altogether for domestic flight passengers to have to be funnelled through the zoo that is passport control.

I blame DAA and DOJ for the whole debacle. They may be at loggerheads I dunno, but that's the impression I am getting.

The passenger still suffers, and at the end of the day, the Immigration Hall is a total disgrace at the moment. But maybe it will be done up, and make the hour long wait more pleasurable. I am being ironic here, in case you didn't notice.

ohnonotgmail

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Is this new "scanning" of passports connected to Interpol or whatever agency detects dodgy entrants?

Or is it optics. I don't know.

But what I will say is, it is mad altogether for domestic flight passengers to have to be funnelled through the zoo that is passport control.

I blame DAA and DOJ for the whole debacle. They may be at loggerheads I dunno, but that's the impression I am getting.

The passenger still suffers, and at the end of the day, the Immigration Hall is a total disgrace at the moment. But maybe it will be done up, and make the hour long wait more pleasurable. I am being ironic here, in case you didn't notice.

that is what they claim. It is used to detect dodgy passports as much as dodgy people.

Spanish Eyes

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

that is what they claim. It is used to detect dodgy passports as much as dodgy people.

That's great if it is in "real time", but is it?

If someone is dodgy, or has a dodgy passport, they are long gone out of the airport if it is not a "real time" procedure surely. However I am sure it is instant identification of any "dodgyness" and into a side room with you now.

ohnonotgmail

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

That's great if it is in "real time", but is it?

If someone is dodgy, or has a dodgy passport, they are long gone out of the airport if it is not a "real time" procedure surely.

again, apparently it is. i've seen reports of a number of passports seized since they introduced it.

Spanish Eyes

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

again, apparently it is. i've seen reports of a number of passports seized since they introduced it.

Ok, that's good.

You can probably guess that I am a teeny bit sceptical about it all. But I'm sure it's all ok.

The reason I am sceptical is that a person is waved on once the passport has been scanned. I get the feeling that for other agencies (Interpol etc.) to identify dodgyness would take longer than the time it takes to scan a passport.

I stand to be corrected of course, and accept my cynicism is totally misplaced.

LiamaDelta

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Ok, that's good.

You can probably guess that I am a teeny bit sceptical about it all. But I'm sure it's all ok.

The reason I am sceptical is that a person is waved on once the passport has been scanned. I get the feeling that for other agencies (Interpol etc.) to identify dodgyness would take longer than the time it takes to scan a passport.

I stand to be corrected of course, and accept my cynicism is totally misplaced.

It cross-checks the passport against a database of reported lost or stolen passports, so yes it would be instantaneous.

Spanish Eyes

LiamaDelta wrote: »

It cross-checks the passport against a database of reported lost or stolen passports, so yes it would be instantaneous.

Instantaneous. That's brilliant.

The queues should get really short now that the dodgy ones know they will be apprehended immediately and won't even try it out.

Fred Swanson

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Spanish Eyes

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Yes that is what my post inferred.

If it is live that's fine, otherwise the perpetrators are long gone. But I am sure they will be caught eventually before they cross the unmanned immigration border North of Dundalk or something.

Thanks.

The Veteran

I don't know how to post a link on here but go to www.oireachtas.ie and have a look at a Parliamentary Question answer from Tuesday on the question of queues in the airport.

It's question 108 on the list of questions replied to on Tuesday.

Fred Swanson

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trellheim

Thanks Fred

I am informed that the queues to which the Deputies refers do not arise as a result of the operation of immigration controls at Dublin Airport but are rather a consequence of other factors outside the control of the service.

This is incorrect.

INIS and GNIB can direct DAA to segregate CTA passengers and switch to random checks on those as they do at other entry ports. This would remove over 1/3 of the queues immediately and provide a vastly improved experience for all.

In relation to passport gates, they will not improve CTA UK and IE passenger experiences, as you are not required to present a passport to a gate.

I was thinking about the law on the cycle into work : if you, as a CTA Irish citizen passenger, present a passport or any document to an immigration officer, under what legal instrument is he qualified to judge it ? As an Irish citizen I am specifically exempt from this law ( as per the immigration act ) ).

grogi

trellheim wrote: »

Thanks Fred



This is incorrect.

INIS and GNIB can direct DAA to segregate CTA passengers and switch to random checks on those as they do at other entry ports. This would remove over 1/3 of the queues immediately and provide a vastly improved experience for all.

In relation to passport gates, they will not improve CTA UK and IE passenger experiences, as you are not required to present a passport to a gate.

I was thinking about the law on the cycle into work : if you, as a CTA Irish citizen passenger, present a passport or any document to an immigration officer, under what legal instrument is he qualified to judge it ? As an Irish citizen I am specifically exempt from this law ( as per the immigration act ) ).

He is not judging your passport. He is simply verifying if you can skip showing him the passport.

If you can prove your nationality in any other way, that cannot be rejected. But it is much simpler ask for passport from everyone.

Coil Kilcrea

Just came through a packed hallway now in 15 minutes. Line moved constantly and plenty of immigration officers manning desks. That said, it's an awful mess. T5 Heathrow was 4 minutes.

LXFlyer

Coil Kilcrea wrote: »

Just came through a packed hallway now in 15 minutes. Line moved constantly and plenty of immigration officers manning desks. That said, it's an awful mess. T5 Heathrow was 4 minutes.

If you don't mind, could you add which terminal and, if T1, which airline was that?

It would be helpful if people can put this info in their posts, so that we can tell which of the three immigration halls they're talking about!

Most of the queuing issues seem to be in the immigration hall for passengers arriving in T1 at the 1XX and 2XX gates which does not seem to be fit for purpose in terms of size - Ryanair, Cityjet, British Airways, Flybe and SAS flights

There is separate immigration hall in T1 for flights arriving at the 3XX gates that are handled in T1 (Lufthansa, SWISS, Air Canada, Iberia, Turkish) and of course T2 has its own immigration hall.

eeguy

I was in Frankfurt recently and they had ten automated passport scanner at the entrance to departures.
They had a manned desk too over in the corner for people who needed to use it, with a separate queue, but it was definitely secondary to the machines.

Wish they had a similar system in Dublin.

Fred Swanson

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Coil Kilcrea

lxflyer wrote: »

If you don't mind, could you add which terminal and, if T1, which airline was that?

It would be helpful if people can put this info in their posts, so that we can tell which of the three immigration halls they're talking about!

Good point. BA from Heathrow into Terminal 1.

LXFlyer

Coil Kilcrea wrote: »

Good point. BA from Heathrow into Terminal 1.

Thanks - that is the hall that isn't really big enough to cope with the numbers.

Fred Swanson

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Irish Steve

Just looked at the arrivals information for this evening, and it's no great surprise that there are problems at T1. Someone somewhere earlier in the thread suggested there are 20 desks to deal with T1 arrivals. Well, between 2300 & 2400, every one of those 20 desks will have to be manned in order to deal with a passenger every 20 seconds, right through the hour, to deal with the 19 flights that are scheduled to arrive between 2300 & 2400. That doesn't allow for flights running late, or other airlines that use T1, or closed desks, or longer checks for unapproved entrants, or any of the other issues that have been raised earlier in the thread.

In reality, we need to be getting things in order now before Brexit in whatever form actually happens, the more I look at what's being said, the more chance I see of a "special" fudge being put together that will result in a seamless border, with the actual border controls being enforced and managed at the airports and sea ports, for both inbound and outbound travellers, as that will be the only way to ensure that the integrity of the UK and the EU are managed. So, it's more than possible that passports will be checked in both directions, with some people being denied entry or exit depending on the document they produce and their intended destination. It will be a total mess, with the only other (unworkable and unacceptable) option being a hard border, with controls at the border, and that won't remove the requirement for checks at the airports and sea ports that will be more demanding than those in place at present.

I made a couple of trips to Istanbul a while back, and the afternoon flight from Dublin arrives at about 2300 Local, along with a lot more flights from all over the place. The queue to get through immigration can take up to an hour, and they have probably 40 desks operating, 20 for non Turkish, and 20 for nationals, and the queues at the desks are the same sort of length for both.

The T1 checks at present are a mess, there's not enough gates, or automatic scanning, and yes, in theory, the CTA should mean that a significant percentage of people entering are not supposed to be being checked, but the problem is that while it (in theory) is a CTA with the UK, in practice, for some people, it is NOT a CTA, and there is no way other than checking passports to segregate out the people who are not entitled to unchecked access to Ireland from the UK, so segregating UK flights from Shengen or European flights won't solve that problem, and the rest still all have to be checked, so the only solution is more gates and staff to man them, and viable fast scanners at the peak times, which unfortunately are at antisocial times of the day, and if the Brexit goes the way I suspect it will, the checks will no longer be optional or random, both the EU and the UK will require that every one entering or leaving Ireland is checked, it will be yet another "Irish solution" to an external problem, until such time as the unification of Ireland is agreed, and we won't go there in this thread!

I am expecting that there will be huge numbers of complaints this weekend about delays, if the number of scheduled flights is any guide, given that it's also a bank holiday weekend here.