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The DUB Passport/Immigration Queue Thread

180567

Would anyone know if anything is being done to solve the issues at Terminal one passport control ? Extremely long queues for passengers arriving in the evenings. An hour or more seems to be the new normal now.

There seems to be a real problem with the number of inbound flights after 10 and not having enough passport control staff to cope with the numbers. For some reason Terminal two is not affected and it never takes more than five minutes to get through there. I see in T1 they are scanning the passport through a scanner machine now so I think that is what is also slowing it all down.

I'm kind of surprised Ryanair haven't been on going bonkers about this as it's really affecting their passengers rather than anyone elses. Any of their evening flights arriving later than 10 are going to be caught up in these massive queues. After being caught up in the long queues a couple of times I'd really think twice before I'd book a T1 evening arriving flight again. Regardless of the price I'd now pay the extra to go Aer Lingus through T2 just to avoid that.

We're not even into the peak summer holiday season so I don't know what it is going to be like come July or august.

I can think of a few ways to improve the system myself - separate the UK \ common travel area arriving passengers like they do at Gatwick where people show their boarding card to confirm they are traveling from the UK. Or loads more of the automatic scanner gates.

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LiamaDelta

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Nope, passport scanned and a very pleasant greeting from the official.

Bog Man 1

I was talking to a person that works in the IDA and he said it was embarrassing to invite an investor over to Ireland and have them held up for over an hour . He said some of these business people might only be coming over for one day and would have an early flight in . A lot of work would have been done in anticipation of their visit with all sorts of high level meetings scheduled for the day for them all to be thrown out of kilter because somebody that requires the attention of passport control gets to the top of the que resulting in them at best spending ten minutes proving they are not an alien or having to dissapear for twenty minutes while they are processed .
When passport control hear my accent I do not even think I would need to show my passport even though when I am in Germany people frequently ask me for directions .
I do however feel that anybody entering Ireland should be treated with respect and not held up irrespective of whether they are bringing 1000 jobs or bedecked with L plates and dildos .

nc6000

My parents came through there earlier today and said it took them about an hour. Apparently they were told that 22 plans has landed within an hour of each other.

Why can they not have sufficient staff on at busy times? Surely they know how many planes are due in, where they are originating and what times of the day are going to be the busiest.

Avada

nc6000 wrote: »

My parents came through there earlier today and said it took them about an hour. Apparently they were told that 22 plans has landed within an hour of each other.

Why can they not have sufficient staff on at busy times? Surely they know how many planes are due in, where they are originating and what times of the day are going to be the busiest.

Sufficient staff or not, you don't have the capacity to get that many passengers through in a short space of time, even with every booth open.

The Veteran

I'm going to say it again!

If anyone checks now and for the last few weeks; save for some off peak times; every booth in the area where Ryanair passengers meet immigration is open. The issue is not staffing; the issues are:

- daa is months behind on a construction project in the area which has significantly reduced the side of the hall;

- daa staff close the Skybridge at their discretion -nothing to do with immigration staff; and

- most critically there are only 10 booths.

If there were 20 staff available it makes little odds.

The area is too small; is poorly designed in terms of how passengers move through and there are too few booths. The issue is not staffing levels.

finbarrk

manonboard wrote: »

I'm irish, 10 minute wait about 3 weeks ago at 11:30pm.
My partner though.. Us citizen coming from spain with me (holiday).. 1 hour and 45 minutes. It was ridiculous. Two booths open for an enormous amount of people. it can easily take 5-15 minutes for a difficult passenger..I cannot see how this was so badly planned. It was so bad just waiting on the other side just watching the non moving queue. After travel, its difficult enough doing exercises like that. We were so tired.

I saw similar. There were loads of booths un manned. Why hadn't they more staff on? I sent a complaint to DAA. They washed their hands of it. I replied, 'It's your Airport, sort it out'. Didn't get a reply.

finbarrk

I'm lucky, Shannon is my local Airport. Max 2 mins in a queue.

The Veteran

finbarrk wrote: »

I saw similar. There were loads of booths un manned. Why hadn't they more staff on? I sent a complaint to DAA. They washed their hands of it. I replied, 'It's your Airport, sort it out'. Didn't get a reply.

As a matter of interest, which Terminal and when (exactly).

testicles

This post has been deleted.

Jogathon

wordofwarning wrote: »

I had this before. I got asked where I was flying from? How long was I there? Where I am from in Ireland? I got handed back my passport when I said "Dublin obviously". I got told with that attitude, it is clear you are from Dublin

They really know how to pick the crowd working the passport control desks now...

I'm in full agreement with Passport Officer on this point.....

Reminds me of the hill in Croke Park. "Hill 16 is Dublin only." Hilarious attitude.

grogi

Jogathon wrote: »

I'm in full agreement with Passport Officer on this point.....

Reminds me of the hill in Croke Park. "Hill 16 is Dublin only." Hilarious attitude.

My wife had a similar, yet much funnier story in Roma, Fiumicino.

She approached the baggage drop desk, the lady behind the counter greeted her:
- Bon Giorno, where are you flying to? (in no way my wife looks Italian, they did not even try Italian)
- Buongiorno (with a thick southern accent)
- Palermo - she cut in - obviously.

;-)

Sup08

Negative_G wrote: »

Some really interesting discussion on this subject.

Someone else asked the question previously.

Say returning on a flight from the UK, I decided to proceed straight through the gate without showing ID as the 2004 Act seems to imply that I can do, what would happen?

I'm sure that it would cause a stir but you haven't committed ant offence if I'm reading the act correctly.

I'm sure you will get stopped as you have not shown that you have traveled from within the CTA.
All flights from the UK and mainland Europe (Ryanair and others) arrive into the same terminal, therefore passengers arriving from the CTA cannot be distinguished from passengers arriving from mainland Europe.

I don't think it is the function of immigration to control what gates the flights taxi to and passengers disembark, therefore leaving immigration with no other option but to immigrate everyone the same.

If the DAA were to provide a separate terminal/area for flights from the CTA, then I'm sure there may be a different immigration function at the Airport in this CTA area.

So until the current ongoing works are completed in T1 by the Airport Authority, the queues may remain if the booth number are not increased with staff no where to sit and immigrate.

Going to or from Belfast on a train or Hollyhead/Liverpool on a boat are exactly that, they are ports within the CTA. Random checks are performed as these ports by Gardai. Any boats/ships arriving outside the CTA in Dublin maybe treated differently as they arrive into a different dock.

plodder

Sup08 wrote: »

I'm sure you will get stopped as you have not shown that you have traveled from within the CTA.
All flights from the UK and mainland Europe (Ryanair and others) arrive into the same terminal, therefore passengers arriving from the CTA cannot be distinguished from passengers arriving from mainland Europe.

I don't think it is the function of immigration to control what gates the flights taxi to and passengers disembark, therefore leaving immigration with no other option but to immigrate everyone the same.

If the DAA were to provide a separate terminal/area for flights from the CTA, then I'm sure there may be a different immigration function at the Airport in this CTA area.

So until the current ongoing works are completed in T1 by the Airport Authority, the queues may remain if the booth number are not increased with staff no where to sit and immigrate.

Going to or from Belfast on a train or Hollyhead/Liverpool on a boat are exactly that, they are ports within the CTA. Random checks are performed as these ports by Gardai. Any boats/ships arriving outside the CTA in Dublin maybe treated differently as they arrive into a different dock.

What you seem to be saying here is that immigration procedures at Dublin Airport have evolved really just to fit in with the configuration of the arrivals area at any particular time. This wouldn't surprise me really, but it's a totally unacceptable situation.

After all, we do actually own the DAA. The government, who we elect, set immigration policies and procedures. If it's the case that these are independent empires within the state, that wouldn't surprise me either, but it doesn't make it any more acceptable. Just to add though, that's the fault of politicians, not the immigration service, or the DAA in my opinion.

Sup08

plodder wrote: »

What you seem to be saying here is that immigration procedures at Dublin Airport have evolved really just to fit in with the configuration of the arrivals area at any particular time. This wouldn't surprise me really, but it's a totally unacceptable situation.

Well, when Brexit does eventually happen and in the worse case, a hard border must return to the North and ports, then immigration whether managed by INIS or the Guards has to evolve to the changes with the borders they need to manage as the CTA will no longer exist in its current format.

IQO

Just counting about 14 inbound flights this close to Dublin at the moment, mostly Ryanair - let's see if there the immigration process goes quicker this Sunday evening.

jeanjolie

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.

IQO

IQO wrote: »

Just counting about 14 inbound flights this close to Dublin at the moment, mostly Ryanair - let's see if there the immigration process goes quicker this Sunday evening.

And it's on

https://twitter.com/DarraghMcKenna/status/868959112310272000

https://twitter.com/clearyb1/status/868967782385373184

https://twitter.com/gareth_c/status/868962948907249666

Negative_G

The whole fiasco stinks of a "union rules, bud" type management.

Absolutely disgraceful.

The Veteran

Yawn ...

Why don't the keyboard warriors on here and Twitter ask the relevant authorities appropriate questions.

Ask the Dept of Justice how many staff are currently on duty (tonight)?

Ask them how many they and GNIB shave stopped entering Ireland this week?

Ask them how many desks are open (don't rely on the broken signs

Ask daa what the queue times are?

Ask daa why they have not built a bigger hall?

Ask daa how many flights have landed since 23:00; how many are in time; how many passengers are being unloaded in the period and what the expected throughput is?

Then look up the ICAO targets at EU airport's for EU passengers

After all that come back and post ...

(And yes I do have a vested interest)

trellheim

I'm sure you will get stopped as you have not shown that you have traveled from within the CTA.

under what law , - there is no requirement on me to prove I have done so, if I am an Irish citizen. If he asks - well and good otherwise walk on past.

DAA , GNIB, INIS, DOJ - see that - thats a list of acronyms that could not give a fk.

Gatwick force FR and EI to bus CTA arrivals away from the normal run , and there's random checks. Heathrow, Edi, Bhx , City, Stansted all segregated channels with random checks. In fact all UK airports manage it without fuss

Ireland ? No. Not even an apology for treating people like dirt ; watch the twitter feeds , DAA in particular for "not our problem guv"

trellheim

Ask the Dept of Justice how many staff are currently on duty (tonight)?

Ask them how many they and GNIB shave stopped entering Ireland this week?

Ask them how many desks are open (don't rely on the broken signs

Ask daa what the queue times are?

Ask daa why they have not built a bigger hall?

Ask daa how many flights have landed since 23:00; how many are in time; how many passengers are being unloaded in the period and what the expected throughput is?

Then look up the ICAO targets at EU airport's for EU passengers

After all that come back and post ...

(And yes I do have a vested interest)

Really ? it doesn't come across - at all.

Perhaps more important questions - where's the CTA passenger segregation and make passport control actually a passport control

You seem to think those stats you quote above are relevant ; is there a customer charter for CTA passengers , and is there one for non-CTA passengers which lays out what level of SLA we can expect from GNIB and INIS

Your attitude "Yawn" sets out exactly the kind of blase attitude from someone sat in a booth that one would expect.

Negative_G

The Veteran wrote: »

Yawn ...

Why don't the keyboard warriors on here and Twitter ask the relevant authorities appropriate questions.

Ask the Dept of Justice how many staff are currently on duty (tonight)?

Ask them how many they and GNIB shave stopped entering Ireland this week?

Ask them how many desks are open (don't rely on the broken signs

Ask daa what the queue times are?

Ask daa why they have not built a bigger hall?

Ask daa how many flights have landed since 23:00; how many are in time; how many passengers are being unloaded in the period and what the expected throughput is?

Then look up the ICAO targets at EU airport's for EU passengers

After all that come back and post ...

(And yes I do have a vested interest)

Just missing a "not my problem, bud" in there also.

If all these issues and questions are so glaringly obvious, what have you or your vested interest done to address them, aside from appointing blame?

The Veteran

Negative_G wrote: »

Just missing a "not my problem, bud" in there also.

If all these issues and questions are so glaringly obvious, what have you or your vested interest done to address them, aside from appointing blame?

Ask the DOJ show many staff are on duty tonight....

Atlantic Dawn

Would the same problem have happened last Sunday night?

Negative_G

The Veteran wrote: »

Ask the DOJ show many staff are on duty tonight....

Seems like you already know the answer so why don't you tell us.

The Veteran

Negative_G wrote: »

Seems like you already know the answer so why don't you tell us.

I do as it happens but the question should be asked officially.

There are more officers on duty tonight than there are desks available. The daa has reduced the size of the Hall with building works. The daa are the Ines who stop passengers in the Bridge.

All desks have been open all night ...

There are multiple delays tonight

Etc etc

[Deleted User]

Theres a piece in this weekends Irish Mail on Sunday saying that the automatic passport control gates in T1 are out of action until the Autumn. Apparently theres a row over maintenance contracts. If thats true, heads need to roll.

languagenerd

Saw this thread last week and was a bit worried about flying back tonight, but there was no queue at all when I came through there just before 10pm. One person ahead of me. Three desks open.

If some of those 11pm planes could be moved forwards a bit, it would balance the queues out. (Or more staff on - but I suppose the argument is that they hardly need anyone for most of the shift when it was so quiet at 9:45/10pm...)

The Veteran

A bit of balance ...

kravmaga

The DOJ have recruited heavily over the past 12 months for ICO civilian clerical officer grade.

So a major recruitment campaign and 12 hour work roster, seems strange that all of a sudden there is massive Q's, the whole idea here was to free up GNIB Officers and re-deploy into core Policing duties and civilised the whole operation with a handful of specialist knowledge GNIB left at the airport for arrest or referral of suspect passport holders or potential criminal investigations.

So where is the solution, is it Department of Justice, DAA, or a combination of poor allocation of resources?