The DUB Passport/Immigration Queue Thread

LXFlyer

I have to admit I was surprised that BA moved to the 2XX gates from the 3XX gates.

Arriving into the 3XX gates is generally easy enough given the much smaller volume of T1 flights using them.

ahbell

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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I landed into Dublin at about 7pm on Tuesday evening on a BA flight from Heathrow and went through immigration in the same hall as all the Ryanair passengers. You just come into the hall from the opposite end and then have to merge into the queue.

LXFlyer

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Last time I arrived on a BA flight it was at the 2XX gates, which is where they mostly depart from nowadays.

Fred Swanson

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trellheim

Irish Steve : without a long quote ( and an excellent post BTW)

in practice, for some people, it is NOT a CTA

Sure : but - and this is my point - they are not mandated to check them - there is no obligation to do so.

Otherwise you would see passport checking on the train down from Belfast. But you do not.

And a lot of people do arrive by aeroplane - given. But that is no difference in the law .

Yet you see rail, sea, bus international travel dealt with entirely differently to air and no official reason provided by the agencies concerned.

GNIB ( for example ) could have a CTA segregated channel in T2 , and INIS could do it the way it is done currently in T1 ;
Again you do not see this; why not ?

They are completely separate agencies and free to impose different processing.

Irish Steve

trellheim wrote: »

Irish Steve : without a long quote ( and an excellent post BTW)

Sure : but - and this is my point - they are not mandated to check them - there is no obligation to do so.

Otherwise you would see passport checking on the train down from Belfast. But you do not.

And a lot of people do arrive by aeroplane - given. But that is no difference in the law .

Yet you see rail, sea, bus international travel dealt with entirely differently to air and no official reason provided by the agencies concerned.

GNIB ( for example ) could have a CTA segregated channel in T2 , and INIS could do it the way it is done currently in T1 ;
Again you do not see this; why not ?

They are completely separate agencies and free to impose different processing.

Fully understood, and I have to agree with much of what's being said in this thread, and it annoys the you know what out of me to have to spend significant time in a queue that's not supposed to be there when coming in by air from the UK, it didn't used to be the case, and it still should not.

The whole aspect of "airport security", the limits on hold bags, and related issues are some of the reasons why I have to admit to preferring to travel to the UK by ferry and road more often, even though it takes considerably longer to get to our destination.

I suspect that the real reason is that segregating UK from Schengen or European flights (as that's the main use of the 100 gates) is simply not a practical option with the way that the terminal was designed, and DAA has no interest in spending a lot of money to do something that's not mandated by government or (active) law, even if it's not strictly correct.

The reality is that anyone entering Ireland by ferry or road, with the exception of the limited number of ferries direct from France has already been processed by the seriously tight border controls of the UK, whereas passengers arriving into T1's Ryanair pier (and yes I know it's not just Ryanair, but it's the simplest way to describe it) are coming from a number of places across Europe, both within and outside of Schengen, so they are very much "of interest" to immigration, partly because the departure checks at some airports are not always that rigid, and why should they be, the passenger is departing, so if they were not supposed to be there, why would they want to risk having to detain them, and partly because there can be significant numbers of people that need to have additional documentation (visa or similar) to enter Ireland.

If the CTA was a true CTA, then there would be a strong case for having a completely segregated corridor system for those flights, or using buses to bring those passengers to the baggage reclaim hall, as used to be the case a long time ago, but that would impose significant costs on either DAA or the airline's handling agent to have sufficient buses to be able to perform that function, a long time ago when I worked on the ramp, the quality of the buses that the company I was with was dire, they were only just about usable, and certainly would never have passed a DOE inspection.

I suspect that DAA don't want to do anything about it at the moment, and are going to be both deaf and blind to the issue until we get some serious clarity about how the Brexit scenario with the border is going to play out, it could well be the case that a lot of complex changes will be required to implement what I suspect will be a massive fudge by both Europe and the UK, with the result that Ireland will have "special" status within the EU, but retain free access from the North. As to the controls that will then be put in place at the airports and sea ports, that remains to be seen, but I suspect it will not be pretty, or quick to negotiate, regardless of where you're going to or from, and a likely change fairly early on will be that the ability to enter the state without documentation will be removed for entry through a port or airport. If that means that there then is no internal border within Ireland, that may well be a price that's considered "acceptable" in the overall scale of things. As to if it's a good idea, that remains to be seen.

LXFlyer

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Turkish are 3XX gates alright.

Of today's BA flights so far (data from the DAA app), only 2 have gone from the 3XX gates (both Cityflyer) and the other 8 have gone from the 2XX gates.

The Veteran

Fred Swanson wrote: »

BA flights clear immigration from the 300 gates.

Depends, some use 200s; some 300

L1011

lxflyer wrote: »

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.

Do Finnair not also use the 300s?

KLM use bussing from the new bus gates at the start of the 200s and you end up in that hall as far as I remember. Bit of an issue for a "premium" airline.

BA and BACF use different piers which is presumably causing the confusion about where they go from here.

LXFlyer

L1011 wrote: »

Do Finnair not also use the 300s?

KLM use bussing from the new bus gates at the start of the 200s and you end up in that hall as far as I remember. Bit of an issue for a "premium" airline.

BA and BACF use different piers which is presumably causing the confusion about where they go from here.

I may have left a few airlines out - I was picking the main airlines from memory! ;-)

It wasn't an exhaustive list - but my main point was that there are different immigration halls and it's helpful if people identify which one they're using when they post here!

I found the use of the 1XX gates by SAS similarly an issue!

Regarding BA, just looking at the DAA app now, all 8 BA mainline LHR flights used the 2XX gates and of the 5 BA Cityflyer flights 3 went from the 3XX gates and 2 from the 2XX gates!

The Veteran

Irish Steve wrote: »

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.

There aren't 20 desks in the main T1 area - there are 10; 3 of which are temporary ones.

Do the figures?

Irish Steve

The Veteran wrote: »

There aren't 20 desks in the main T1 area - there are 10; 3 of which are temporary ones.

Do the figures?

Apologies, I thought I'd read 20, but it is a long thread:D. In that case, nearly 4000 people through 10 gates in the peak period means getting close to 7 people a minute through every gate, and even if the staff were willing and able, (and after a couple of hours of that sort of pressure, even the most willing is likely to be getting pretty frayed, given the number of complaints they will be getting) my nasty suspicious mind tells me that the response times of the computer systems that are checking the passports will mean that there is no way to get even close to getting that number through. As to if that is a local network issue, or a central computer issue, either way, it's a major problem that should have been addressed.

Even if the will to address the issues was there, which I doubt, I don't think much will be done until the direction of Brexit becomes clearer, as the possible implications of that scenario don't bear thinking about in too much detail right now.

Avada

Its not a network issue. Google biometric passports and how they work. The chip on some passports take up to 30 seconds to unlock when scanning, with the best computers in the world, that won't improve.

trellheim

It seems from the above that electronic gates will not help with the issue.

Therefore the main solution to this long queue, as it seems to me, is to do what I have been saying all along ,

direct the immigration agencies to force DAA to segregate inbound CTA passengers,

switch to random intelligence-led checks on that lot, just as is done for all other entry points

and make main passport control actually a passport control worthy of the name.

UK flights are approx 40% of the load ; you cannot tell me that doing this will not improve the situation.

This will also allow scarce resource - officers - be targeted to where they will do the most good .

The Veteran

The response times of the IT is not the issue. The dynamics of the transaction mapped to the number of the booths taken with the volume is what creates the congestion.

Gates will generate more capacity but the need is for overall capacity.

In the winter the 300s inbound do practically nothing after 6pm; they don't do much more during the Summer. Similarly the 400s are not under pressure after 7pm in the evenings.

Irish Steve

trellheim wrote: »

It seems from the above that electronic gates will not help with the issue.

It should, as long as they are additional to the manned gates, not a substitute for them, given the numbers that have to be processed. I did a quick search earlier to see if I could actually find any timings of how long it takes to process a passport, but there was nothing very evident, despite the figure quoted earlier.

Having passed through several automated checks at other airports, I don't buy that 30 second unlock figure, we were through the automated gates quicker than that, I think about 20 seconds was the time actually in the gate, so on that basis, there will be more gates needed to effectively handle the volumes.

Therefore the main solution to this long queue, as it seems to me, is to do what I have been saying all along ,

direct the immigration agencies to force DAA to segregate inbound CTA passengers,

switch to random intelligence-led checks on that lot, just as is done for all other entry points

There are several issues with this idea that make it a non optimal solution. The first is that the number of inbound passengers that come through Dublin is massive compared to to the other entry points, the numbers entering by ferry is minute in comparison. The main issue is that to force DAA to act now on CTA segregation given the very significant implications of Brexit and the future of the CTA is not realistic, there are just too many possible changes that could come out of negotiations that are not even started yet.

I am not sure that all the airlines are sharing passenger information with Immigration services, and "targeting" passengers of interest would be a lot harder to do at the airport compared to the ferry ports, unless you want to start segregating passengers as they come off the aircraft, which is a very different ball game to what's happening now, that would require some form of gate and control system for every airbridge, which is just not going to happen, for all sorts of reasons.

There is also the issue of timings, depending on how long after departure the lists are forwarded, the aircraft could be on the ground and unloaded before the list has been processed to see if there's any flags showing up.

The most likely scenario is that the airport will change to require full passport scanning for all entrants, as that's the only way that a seamless border with the North can be implemented, and the same scenario will be introduced for the ferries, both North and South, and the UK will then have to introduce whatever checks they see as appropriate on entry, to ensure that their borders are secured to meet their new requirements, in whatever form they eventually are agreed on.

The CTA will almost certainly change, but exactly how that change will come about is very uncertain, and given some of the noises that are being made about "respecting the Good Friday agreement", it seems that the thinking is to avoid a hard border, even if that will mean tighter controls at the points of entry into the Island of Ireland.

It's very possible that the price of a soft border for Ireland will be that residents of Northern Ireland will have to pass through some form of border control process when travelling out of Northern Ireland to the remainder of the UK (whatever that eventually ends up as) but that is likely to be every bit as controversial as the other alternatives, and if the UK becomes even more fragmented with Scotland getting a separation, there's no telling how this is going to play out, a trip by road from Donegal to somewhere like Newcastle by road via Belfast could end up with 3 border checks if Scotland changes their status.

Avada

@Irish Steve, just an fyi, I said some passports take up to 30 seconds. Some can be quick and unlock in under 10 seconds. It varies.

E-Gates should help a lot imo.

fullstop

jeanjolie wrote: »

Is it a bit sad that Ireland is one of the few countries in Western Europe that doesn't seem to have Electronic passport gates in service on a daily basis?

Know they were put on a trial basis but so far...nothing.

It's a joke of a setup. I cant understand how they can't have flights from the UK directed in a different door, avoiding passport control, like they do in most UK airports. The Australians really have it sussed when it comes to airport setup, Domestic Terminal - International Terminal...and kerbside lounge access with private security screening.

Irish Steve

fullstop wrote: »

It's a joke of a setup. I cant understand how they can't have flights from the UK directed in a different door, avoiding passport control, like they do in most UK airports. The Australians really have it sussed when it comes to airport setup, Domestic Terminal - International Terminal...and kerbside lounge access with private security screening.

The UK flights can't bypass immigration any more because there are now people who are legally allowed to be in the UK, but require visas to enter Ireland, and the airlines, or other services at the departure airport are not required to check that the passenger has the necessary documentation or permissions to enter Ireland. The CTA is misleading, in that not all people are now entitled to common travel.

That could get even more complicated when the exact implications of Brexit have been agreed with all the parties involved.

Irish Steve

Avada wrote: »

@Irish Steve, just an fyi, I said some passports take up to 30 seconds. Some can be quick and unlock in under 10 seconds. It varies.

E-Gates should help a lot imo.

They should, as long as there's enough of them, and they keep the existing manual gates as well. I suspect that there's a space issue for the number that's really needed however, and DAA are going to be very reluctant to release more space for non revenue earning activities.

Fred Swanson

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Irish Steve

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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the numbers are what has changed, and due to the degree of checking that was carried out by Special Branch in the UK, (I still have a couple of the pink and green cards that we had to fill in for every flight), the checks here in those times were minimal by comparison.

25 years ago, Aer Lingus commuter were flying Saab 340's or F50's to the UK regionals, and Ryanair were only operating a very limited number of routes with 1-11's, so the numbers of people passing through the airport was a LOT lower than it is now, and Ryanair European routes were yet to evolve, they only started flying European routes in 1992. The Ryanair 737-200's had not yet appeared on the scene, so things were a lot less hectic ( I can't say quieter, the 200's were NOISY) than they are now, and very early morning and late night arrivals back into Dublin were yet to come, as were the days of 1c flights.

trellheim

The UK flights can't bypass immigration any more because there are now people who are legally allowed to be in the UK, but require visas to enter Ireland, and the airlines, or other services at the departure airport are not required to check that the passenger has the necessary documentation or permissions to enter Ireland. The CTA is misleading, in that not all people are now entitled to common travel.

umm... they can be bypassed . when you say "can't" above, there is no requirement in law for them to be examined. The Immigration officer can choose to ignore a whole cohort of people .

Your points about checking airline information ( under what law, by the way ?) - does that apply to Irish Rail or Aircoach , both of whom also operate CTA services ? . It clearly does not.



The numbers crossing the ROI/UK border every day are not checked; it is only at the airports.

Gatwick, Heathrow etc ( all far bigger airports than Dublin ) , and smaller, busy airports like London City, all manage CTA segregation routinely and without fuss.


Your point regarding BRExit is perfectly valid - but it does not answer the inconsistent immigration approach at our airports as compared to the other modes of CTA travel .


I work with a very large cohort of UK workers who are trying to get to work here in Dublin most weeks and yet have to endure long and unnecessary queues .

No official has yet stated on record any policy in this regard, everyone passes the ball . You can see it in this thread

INIS/GNIB blaming DAA

Go on twitter and you can see DAA blaming GNIB/INIS on a daily basis

I reiterate - no legal bar exists to immigration forcing DAA to segregate CTA passengers as is done next door , where they can switch to random checks.

If I've missed a law or some appendix to the Immigration Act 2004 - let me know.

Irish Steve

What happens next door has no legal or other basis for what happens here. It's a different jurisdiction, with it's own laws and regulations, and expecting the system here to mirror that is likely get a lot of people very hot under the collar.

I don't know the exact "how" of the system here, it is very possible that at some stage, a minister issued a directive to a senior civil servant that the 2004 legislation was to be interpreted in a particular way, or, if a minister didn't issue such a directive note, a senior civil servant with responsibility for immigration issued a guidance note to his department that stated how the CTA issues were to be dealt with.

Either way, despite some fairly carefully worded questions in the Dail, which could have provoked a change, there has been no change, so we can only presume that the absence of such change is because the relevant powers that be are happy with the status quo, and are not in any hurry to change how border controls are being implemented.

It is possible that the strict implementation of the act is not being observed at Dublin, but the only way that is going to change is if the courts find in favour of someone that has been prosecuted for not acting in accordance with the requirements of an immigration officer, and require changes to the way that Dublin Airport is being operated.

I don't appreciate having to spend significant time in a queue when travelling from the UK, but there is very little that I can do about it, other than not use the airports, it would be nice if someone with deep pockets would challenge the way that the airport is managing CTA arrivals, but I am not about to do so, I don't have deep pockets, or the time to spend tilting at windmills.

We can argue for ever here about the rights or wrongs of how immigration controls are being implemented, but it won't change anything unless enough people start contacting their TD's and complaining about the way they are being treated, and if enough people do it, maybe, just maybe, something might change, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that one.

If a sufficient number of manned or automatic gates were available at the airport, there would be a lot less noise about this issue, Dublin is not unique in having immigration check delays, there are plenty of other airports where there are significant delays, so getting something done to fundamentally change how the process is being managed is unlikely to happen any time soon, unless there are good reasons as a result of Brexit or a fundamental change in the requirements to monitor people entering the country.

trellheim

What happens next door has no legal or other basis for what happens here. It's a different jurisdiction, with it's own laws and regulations, and expecting the system here to mirror that is likely get a lot of people very hot under the collar.

I've agreed with that point several times in this thread, and we fought a war to get out from under that. Yet the spirit of it - CTA - the clue is in the name - Common, and I feel extremely strongly that reciprocity is necessary.


What gets me irritated on this is the inconsistency.

I'd get behind everything you say if I had to produce documents at Connolly every time when getting off the Enterprise, or the Aircoach . But I do not.



One can only conclude it is in their power to fix this immediately and choose not to .

Fred Swanson

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trellheim

I agree. At the moment everyone plays into their hands by giving ID into their hands - there is no notice, for example "All passengers must produce ID" - because the moment you do it must be backed by a law on the books.

On a related note, an Independent article linked above had an immigration officer stating that passport scanning would be dealt with so that it did not cause delays, by avoiding scanning where things had gotten too busy.

No comment on this about-face from anyone ?

alibab

At the airport collecting people flight landed T1 at 21.00 and they were off plane and through passport control and had baggage carousel at 21.15 .

jjbrien

I was there on the 21st at around 10:30pm must have took us 45 mins to clear passport control. What bugs me is the auto passport gates only are open 9 to 5 Monday to Friday whist Gatwick and Heathrow can run theirs 24/7. I noticed the baggage hall been worked on. Any chance they will expand the immigation area at some point?

Avada

jjbrien wrote: »

I was there on the 21st at around 10:30pm must have took us 45 mins to clear passport control. What bugs me is the auto passport gates only are open 9 to 5 Monday to Friday whist Gatwick and Heathrow can run theirs 24/7. I noticed the baggage hall been worked on. Any chance they will expand the immigation area at some point?

No they're not. Current gates are closed altogether following completion of their pilot. New gates to be installed soon.