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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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trellheim

[... a driving license... is ]

not a document acceptable for travel as per the Irish Immigration Acts.

Aer lingus and Cityjet have no issue with me using it, and neither do GNIB or Inis.

if are arguing technicalities like this, The fact remains : the majority of inbounds do not require the presentation of biometric identification documentation and yet a scanning solution is being put in place for them.

Thanks for the clarifications regarding passport cards

ohnonotgmail

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

just out of curiosity what countries have you had a problem in?

J.pilkington

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

just out of curiosity what countries have you had a problem in?

You can rule out cdg, bud, bru, lhr, ams, muc, fra, mxp, dus, mad & arn as I've travelled through these (some on multiple occasions)with no issue with my passport card

The Veteran

trellheim wrote: »

[... a driving license... is ] Aer lingus and Cityjet have no issue with me using it, and neither do GNIB or Inis.

if are arguing technicalities like this, The fact remains : the majority of inbounds do not require the presentation of biometric identification documentation and yet a scanning solution is being put in place for them.

Thanks for the clarifications regarding passport cards

Trellheim: the driving licence is not a travel document - look at the IMM Acts, if you are travelling within the CTA you don't need a passport or travel doc if you are a nationality that doesn't require one for such a journey. How you prove your nationality is another thing. A driving licence may establish identity based on the details on the face of it and as such on a CTA route can be accepted as proof of nationality not as a travel document as one is not required.

On your point about Connolly Statuon, I am simply going to refer you to the relevant sub/section of section 4 of the 2004 Act which deals with arrivals other than by air or sea (in other words the land frontier).

And as for your grasp of statistics, 9.9 m pax out of 27.9m total last year travelled on UK\IRL flights last year - that is less than 50% therefore not a majority.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Irish Steve

OK, I have allowed some latitude over the last while in relation to the CTA issues, but on the basis of the response provided a few moments ago by The Veteran, which clarifies a number of issues that were not previously specifically quoted, the CTA issues in respect of Dublin airport are now off limits in this thread.

ohnonotgmail

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

so Bulgaria and Romania? I imagine that is more of a training issue on their side than a problem with the cards themselves.

LXFlyer

For those not in the know (and I am including myself):

OTP = Bucharest
SOF = Sofia (I knew that one)
VAR = Varna

Well I've not been to any of those, but in my travels around Western Europe I have had no issues with the card and as such I'm very happy with it. It sounds as if you were rather unlucky to be honest.

You clearly have more onerous requirements than I and as such a normal passport is probably more appropriate to your needs.

Chris_5339762

Absolutely disgraceful waiting time at Dublin the other night.

Arrived into T1 on FR119 last Saturday night, the Gatwick flight landing at 1045pm roughly. Was first off the plane and the queue was unbelievable. There was one whole person waiting in the queue before me to get through immigration. I had to stop and wait for about three seconds. Terrible.

In all seriousness I expected a long queue given what I've heard and it was the quietest I've ever seen it. It really does seem to be day dependent and very, very time dependent. Strange.

The Veteran

It is very time/day dependent. Friday and Sunday nights - from 23:30 onwards; depending on delays or extra flights.

J.pilkington

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Absolutely disgraceful waiting time at Dublin the other night.

Arrived into T1 on FR119 last Saturday night, the Gatwick flight landing at 1045pm roughly. Was first off the plane and the queue was unbelievable. There was one whole person waiting in the queue before me to get through immigration. I had to stop and wait for about three seconds. Terrible.

In all seriousness I expected a long queue given what I've heard and it was the quietest I've ever seen it. It really does seem to be day dependent and very, very time dependent. Strange.

Your issue (empty booths) sounds different to what has generally been discussed (not enough booths). There is no excuse for your issue

The Veteran

J.pilkington wrote: »

Your issue (empty booths) sounds different to what has generally been discussed (not enough booths). There is no excuse for your issue

He had no issue - he was being ironic

veetwin

Fred Swanson wrote: »

They return and allow you to proceed and to make a complaint to the Irish government which I have done on several occasions.

See above.

Out of interest what was the nature of your complaint to the Irish government and did you get a reply?

Hasschu

The root of the matter is the seeming inability of the inbound staff to pick up the pace when it becomes obvious they are inconveniencing people. Outbound staff do pick up the pace when wait times start to get onerous. I suspect that the airlines get on their case via the politicians if delays hit their bottom line (missed flights). Inbound processing delays do not impinge on the airlines so they ignore that. Management take their cues from their political masters. As we all know clientilism is the norm in Irish politics and anyone with a vote can demand favours. With respect to the DIA situation I would expect politicians to act if they get enough complaints from voters. At Frankfurt where there are a large number of inbound passengers making onward connections they know how to pick up the pace. On one occasion without checked baggage on a flight from Canada I walked right out of the airport with my wife without encountering any controls.
I would take the position that the staff do what they are told to do and all the unnecessary questioning and by the book officiousness is perfectly normal and expected of them. Until the politicians detect unhappiness and a looming attitude of the public voting out incumbents there is no reason for them to tell the management at DUB that they are there to serve the public. A novel concept in Ireland, public servants serving the public without minute by minute prodding from TDs'. Which reminds me I have to give my passport renewal application to my County Kerry TD who will take it to Dublin on Monday and return with a renewed passport Friday evening. Five days is better than 6 weeks using the normal procedure and most of us know that is the Irish way.

The Veteran

Hasschu wrote: »

The root of the matter is the seeming inability of the inbound staff to pick up the pace when it becomes obvious they are inconveniencing people. Outbound staff do pick up the pace when wait times start to get onerous. I suspect that the airlines get on their case via the politicians if delays hit their bottom line (missed flights). Inbound processing delays do not impinge on the airlines so they ignore that. Management take their cues from their political masters. As we all know clientilism is the norm in Irish politics and anyone with a vote can demand favours. With respect to the DIA situation I would expect politicians to act if they get enough complaints from voters. At Frankfurt where there are a large number of inbound passengers making onward connections they know how to pick up the pace. On one occasion without checked baggage on a flight from Canada I walked right out of the airport with my wife without encountering any controls.
I would take the position that the staff do what they are told to do and all the unnecessary questioning and by the book officiousness is perfectly normal and expected of them. Until the politicians detect unhappiness and a looming attitude of the public voting out incumbents there is no reason for them to tell the management at DUB that they are there to serve the public. A novel concept in Ireland, public servants serving the public without minute by minute prodding from TDs'. Which reminds me I have to give my passport renewal application to my County Kerry TD who will take it to Dublin on Monday and return with a renewed passport Friday evening. Five days is better than 6 weeks using the normal procedure and most of us know that is the Irish way.

The opening sentence of your post says it all for me as it shows an utter lack of understanding as to the realities at the airport (covered at length in this thread as regards infrastructure) and the role that is being performed. "Pick up the pace" - officers can only process those who present when they present.

We are now in "unaccompanied minor" season - it's fine for a child to hand in their own passport but the parents (or accompanying adult) should come with them, going to another lane just blocks two lanes until adult and child are reunited. We also have thousands of Spanish and other nationality young teenagers coming in - the groups are relatively easy to deal with but the 14 year old who has a phone number and instructions to get a bus are another thing. All very inconveniencing ...

There are also now more building works in the Hall that prompted this thread - it means that there is one queue feeding five desks; going to be like that for at least a month. You have officers now having the inconvenience of not having any passengers coming up to them as they can't be seen by those in the queue...

The average flow now between the two Terminals is exceeding 50,000 arrivals a day on a lot of days. Within that 50,000 there are at least 50-60 people who will need a lot of time and up to 20 who will be turning around. Each of those inconveniences an offfier for up to two hours. There will also be "ordinary people" travelling on invalid documents because they previously reported them stolen - each one of those "inconveniences" an officer for 10-15 minutes.

These are just some of the examples of the daily inconveniences ....

The Bishop Basher

The Veteran wrote: »

There are also now more building works in the Hall that prompted this thread - it means that there is one queue feeding five desks; going to be like that for at least a month. You have officers now having the inconvenience of not having any passengers coming up to them as they can't be seen by those in the queue...

Thanks for your post.. Interesting to see it from that side..

I came through T1 the other evening and while it was fine at that time i could see how it would be a nightmare if it was busy..

One queue as you say, feeding 5 desks but no order at all in the queue and no-one directing people to the desks where the officer wasn't visible..

An extra head there directing passengers would make a huge difference. There's usually too many guys up at T2 which is pretty efficient..

Maybe they could send one of them over..

It wasn't a late flight. The baggage hall was packed so it was a busy period so fully staffed. We were obviously just lucky and hit a lull.

trellheim

The root of the matter is the seeming inability of the inbound staff to pick up the pace when it becomes obvious they are inconveniencing people. Outbound staff do pick up the pace when wait times start to get onerous. I suspect that the airlines get on their case via the politicians if delays hit their bottom line (missed flights). Inbound processing delays do not impinge on the airlines so they ignore that. Management take their cues from their political masters. As we all know clientilism is the norm in Irish politics and anyone with a vote can demand favours. With respect to the DIA situation I would expect politicians to act if they get enough complaints from voters. At Frankfurt where there are a large number of inbound passengers making onward connections they know how to pick up the pace. On one occasion without checked baggage on a flight from Canada I walked right out of the airport with my wife without encountering any controls.
I would take the position that the staff do what they are told to do and all the unnecessary questioning and by the book officiousness is perfectly normal and expected of them. Until the politicians detect unhappiness and a looming attitude of the public voting out incumbents there is no reason for them to tell the management at DUB that they are there to serve the public. A novel concept in Ireland, public servants serving the public without minute by minute prodding from TDs'. Which reminds me I have to give my passport renewal application to my County Kerry TD who will take it to Dublin on Monday and return with a renewed passport Friday evening. Five days is better than 6 weeks using the normal procedure and most of us know that is the Irish way.

You'll get no love here mate everyone thinks its someone else's problem

Stephen15

Irish Steve wrote: »

I could visualise some serious reactions from a full A330 coming in from Malaga if there was only effectively one person checking the flight, as the number of non EU passengers is likely to be quite low.

Any flight within the EU would have very few non EU passengers. Also would Schegan but non EU such as Switzerland, Norway and Iceland passport holders go through EU or non EU control.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

The Veteran

That's what the Schengen Border Code requires. We follow it too although not in the SBC.

Hasschu

From where I look at it (far away) the design and implementation of passenger handling at Dublin Airport did not involve in a way that could be described as meaningful all the Gov't parties involved. Customs and Immigration, Airport Security, Gardai, Medical, Information Services and others. I was involved in the design and implementation of Terminal 1 at Toronto International and was engaged in actual discussions with the people who would be providing the services to passengers. They all got voluminous drawings of the layouts down to lighting fixture positioning, numerous meetings and their management had to sign off or raise objections to final plans. One thing I know is that change is on going and the conditions prevailing during design will change by the time the project is turned over to the customer. I saw in Germany the newly completed Berlin Airport Terminal building was deficient in numerous areas and is still not in use. These kind of F ups do not happen in Canada and if they do heads roll. My niche was voice and data services, as well as X-Ray and related equipment. It is clear to me that the Dublin problems have depth and breadth and are not confined to front line staff. This does not mean that the TDs' cannot now weigh in to improve matters by way of direction as opposed to micromanagement.

Jamie2k9

Not directly related but:

More than 2,000 people have been refused entry to the State through the ports in the first six months of the year.
A key factor in the tightening up of security nationwide is the introduction of instant checks on passports and other travel documents with an Interpol database.

The move was introduced as a crucial measure in immigration security, but also anti-terrorism efforts to track the movements of suspected jihadis.

Up until late last year, checks with Interpol's lost and stolen travel documents database could only be carried out infrequently.
They were usually done in circumstances where there were already suspicions surrounding a document or the person carrying it.

After a highly successful pilot programme at Dublin airport from the end of November, it has been extended to other ports across the State.

Full article (includes a bit on e gates):
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/2000-people-stopped-at-ports-by-crackdown-on-passports-35887937.html

LXFlyer

Hasschu wrote: »

From where I look at it (far away) the design and implementation of passenger handling at Dublin Airport did not involve in a way that could be described as meaningful all the Gov't parties involved. Customs and Immigration, Airport Security, Gardai, Medical, Information Services and others. I was involved in the design and implementation of Terminal 1 at Toronto International and was engaged in actual discussions with the people who would be providing the services to passengers. They all got voluminous drawings of the layouts down to lighting fixture positioning, numerous meetings and their management had to sign off or raise objections to final plans. One thing I know is that change is on going and the conditions prevailing during design will change by the time the project is turned over to the customer. I saw in Germany the newly completed Berlin Airport Terminal building was deficient in numerous areas and is still not in use. These kind of F ups do not happen in Canada and if they do heads roll. My niche was voice and data services, as well as X-Ray and related equipment. It is clear to me that the Dublin problems have depth and breadth and are not confined to front line staff. This does not mean that the TDs' cannot now weigh in to improve matters by way of direction as opposed to micromanagement.

Is there any chance you could use some paragraphs please?

Posting a massive block of text is very difficult to read.

Hasschu

Canada and the USA, Germany, France and others receive data on inbound passengers as soon as they purchase their tickets from the airline. That data is then cross referenced with CPIC the Canadian police database, Interpols database, NSA and Homeland Security databases. Anyone of interest is met by police at the door of the plane in Canada and escorted to an interrogation room. Rarely would C & I have to deal with tough customers. In some cases the airline is advised that passengers will not be allowed to enter and the airline advises the passenger when they show up at the airport of departure or before. Anyone getting off a plane in Dublin will have been screened for firearms and other weapons at the point of departure. Their passport information will have been made available from the time they bought their ticket. When the passport is swiped in Dublin it would be against a small database on a Dublin server thus lightning fast. Of course if your passport is not on the Dublin server then you are shunted to either police or secondary C & I. Now tell me that Dublin does not have anything resembling what I have described and ask yourself why.
Ireland is not a party to the Schengen agreement but does have access to the Schengen database and visa system and is well aware of the external border controls imposed under the Schengen agreement. Therefore EU residents do not represent a threat to Ireland and can be screened before the plane lands in Dublin. By the way what was the argument that kept us out of Schengen, nothing to do with lily whiteness and virgin purity I hope.

Spanish Eyes

The bottom line is not about GNIB civilian or police or anything like that. It is about DAA's reluctance to make the passenger journeys on arrival at their airports as efficient as possible. Departures wprks very well.

Delays can occur in any airport at immigration. The problem in Dublin T1 anyway is that it is just mayhem and so unwelcoming. It's like queuing for the Gulag. You are herded by pink shirted DAA officials barking at you, but it doesn't matter, the way the Qs go, anyone can jump ahead of you really and there is nothing you can do, unless you want to spend a night in the cells of a nearby Garda Station!

Even if they had a monitor with the wait times (oops that's ambitious customer service right there!), it might be something. But I get the impression that DAA and immigration do not work together really. They have different agendas. If I am wrong please let me know.

I hope the automated lines will help. But someone said the immigration hall is being refurbished T1, is that right? Happy Days if so. Anything that makes the experience more pleasant, even if you have to wait has to be a good thing.

Not knocking DOJ/GNIB but the management need to talk to DAA and get them to oblige, and vice versa, for the sake of everyone.

Just my opinion.

View Profile

Spanish Eyes wrote:

Even if they had a monitor with the wait times (oops that's ambitious customer service right there!), it might be something......

There is a monitor with waiting times.

joeysoap

Hasschu wrote: »

By the way what was the argument that kept us out of Schengen, nothing to do with lily whiteness and virgin purity I hope.

Wasn't it because of the Commn travel area between us and UK? Brits said they'd put passport control on the border or something like that?

Don't get the reference to whiteness and virgin purity

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

J.pilkington

Fred Swanson wrote: »

I was connecting today in Colgone-Bonn to an internal airport today. Too all those that give out about the DAA you should see these guys. Only 2 federal police officers on duty. One checking passports the other was just playing with those elastic rope queue handling systems and barking orders at people in German. Took 40 mins to enter the country.

Compared to today, I would take Dublin any day.

Does this include the time you were in the local police station for trying to use the passport card?

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.