Dublin Airport New Runway/Infrastructure.

kub wrote: »

What is it about this God forsaken country and forward planning?

Ah yes, the infamous statements about T2 being "un-needed for the country" and "too large"

If DAA wasn't under the political banner, and had people that understand aviation, rather than political appointees who are there as a quid pro quo for some other reason, there might be a chance that DAA would run the place, rather than SIPTU, and we all know what SIPTU's agenda is, and improving the quality of the product offered at Dublin Airport doesn't figure very high on that agenda. Some of the design decisions that have been made over time beggar description, I used to work airside, and there are so many issues that cause huge problems it's not funny. As an example, one of the outbound baggage halls had to have been designed by an architect that had never been near the working areas of a busy airport in his life, the twists and turns that are required to get equipment in and out of the place defy description, and there's no storage space close to the baggage hall, so things like containers that are needed for outbound flights have to be parked a long way from the hall, causing delays and problems with managing the flow of bags through the hall. The slope into the 6 bay arrivals baggage hall is an accident black spot in the winter months, there have been a number of accidents due to ice on the inbound slope, and there are limits on the number of bags that can be taken in at one time as a result, which causes more problems for fast delivery of bags to the passengers.

Even if DAA were really running the place, the chances of anything sensible happening any time soon is slim, regardless of how necessary it might be, or how much benefit it would bring to the national economy, the people at the top are about to go into "must get re-elected" mode, so anything that is even mildly controversial, or expensive, will get kicked into the long grass real soon, as we've already seen with the Howlin public pay pronouncement. Any serious expenditure is being mothballed, so even if it was self financing, expansion at Dublin is likely to be such a hot potato, or banana skin, (depending on your viewpoint), the politicians are going to run a mile from anything to do with Dublin Airport until after the next election.

Realistically, the airport needs a number of things in order to keep operating sensibly. 28R is going to be needed before too long, and if it's not needed to provide extra capacity or longer routes, it's going to be needed in order to allow repair work on the existing 28.

Cargo apron space is going to become an issue before too much longer, it's been neglected big time.

Wide body gates are an issue, and the problem is that wide body aircraft can't be turned round in 25 minutes, for all sorts of reasons, like fuel loading times, so the throughput on the wide body gates is a lot lower than on a narrow body gate.

The airport desperately needs a viable rail link into the city.

The Departures road at T1 needs to be completely reorganised to segregate passengers from the car park from the traffic on the set down road, and to make it safer for passengers exiting from vehicles, the through lane should go down the middle lane of the 3, with the set down being on either side, avoiding the hassle of trying to get through a line of parked taxis blocking the middle lane and making kerbside access almost impossible.

Another option would be to have a drop off and collect bay at one or both of the long term car parks, where people could be dropped or collected and then use the shuttle bus service to and from the terminals.

The roundabout at the entrance needs to be replaced by a graded junction, so that the traffic flow is smoother, while there is still time to make those sorts of changes, rather than after the junction reaches grid lock levels, which it will when traffic levels recover as the eventual improvement in the economy happens.