AIRPORT REPORT: DUBLIN Flying high
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Dublin Airport is hoping its newly opened Terminal 2 will fulfi l its goal of becoming a regional hub, writes Oliver Clark.
ven the greatest optimist would have to admit that the timing of the opening of Dublin’s new Terminal 2 was unfortunate. Unveiled by Irish Prime Minister, Brian Cowen, on November 19, 2010, the long awaited €395 state-of-the-art facility missed out on much of the global
media attention it deserved when it was overshadowed by one of the worst fi nancial crises in Ireland’s history. Worse still, one of T2’s most dogged critics, Ryanair’s CEO , Michael
O’Leary, attempted to upstage the event by turning up the same day dressed as an undertaker followed by a coffi n marked ‘Irish Tourism’ complaining, once again, that the ‘showpiece’ building was a white elephant the country could do without. But as the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) is keen to point out, Terminal
2 and its associated facilities represent a long-term investment in the future competitiveness of Dublin Airport – to transform passenger experience, provide more shops and more capacity and crucially, help realise its hub ambitions. “Heathrow’s diffi culties could be Dublin’s opportunity,” says Ronan
Furlong, senior development manager at DAA. “It makes more sense to go to Dublin and catch a fl ight from there than to
transfer through a congested airport; between them, Ryanair and Aer Lingus have an extensive international network and DAA has specially designed its facilities at T2 to cater to long-haul business and leisure travellers.” And DAA believes T2 has a trump card to play; it comes equipped with
only the second US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility in Europe, allowing passengers to clear Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening before arrival in the US – a big advantage for airlines wishing to operate routes to domestic US airports.
26 AIRPORT WORLD/FEBRUARY-MARCH 2011 Designed entirely by the TSA, right down to the cherry wood
surfaces, the CBP facility began operating on January 19 with Delta Air Lines and Continental operating the fi rst fl ights and Aer Lingus expected to follow in February. Dublin Airport processed 19 million passengers in 2010, a signifi cant
drop off from the 23.5 million it saw in 2008, and with Ryanair axing services at Irish airports in what it calls a protest at airport charges, DAA is looking to build up its long-haul market to assure its future profi tability. With this in mind, T2 is to become the home of Dublin’s long-haul
operators with Aer Lingus, US Airways, Etihad and Delta among others now carrying out a phased relocation. T1 will continue to serve short-haul and all low-cost carrier operations, with Ryanair a prominent tenant. Of course DAA is not pinning its hub ambitions on US pre-clearance
alone; unlike T1 where baggage is handled manually, T2 boasts an integrated baggage system installed by Siemens and SITA to ensure the smooth transfer of bags from one aircraft to another. With six carousels and six kilometres of conveyor belts, the baggage
system is designed along the same lines as those installed at Toronto Pearson and Los Angeles Airport (LAX) and boasts an advanced tracking feature and misallocation fail safes. “At check-in the baggage agent simply scans the bar code of a piece of
luggage to trigger the process, each item is placed on an Airport Operational Database (AODB), and the resulting data trail means the operator can keep track of every bag throughout its journey at Dublin Airport,” says Bob McMullan, SITA sales account manager for Ireland. That the baggage system work effectively from the start was essential if Dublin was to avoid the kind of negative publicity meted out to London
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