The long wait at Dublin airport

Madam, - Those of us who travel regularly through Dublin Airport are well positioned to see how badly passenger management has…

Madam, - Those of us who travel regularly through Dublin Airport are well positioned to see how badly passenger management has deteriorated this year.

My flight touched down at 00.10 on Friday morning. I finally left the airport at 01.10.

I was not subject to a delay in the baggage hall (these days I never check bags on to a Dublin-bound flight) and there were no queues at passport control.

The aircraft had to wait almost 15 minutes before moving to its stand and I waited nearly 40 minutes for a taxi.

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The taxi itself had to wait a quarter of an hour before being allowed to pick up a passenger.

It would appear that the Dublin airport traffic management plans for both aircraft and taxis break down at busy times.

There will be far busier times this year - a Thursday in June is hardly peak.

The taxi queue snaked up the side of the terminal and doubled back into the terminal building itself, it was over 200 metres long.

There are few public transport alternatives after midnight, a taxi is the only option for most.

The queue was made up of families returning from holidays, students, business people, even a former editor of The Irish Times!

Most embarrassingly, it also included overseas visitors, many of whom would have waited a further half an hour or more for their bags.

Most first-time visitors to Ireland will have read enough in advance to know that our country is expensive and that the weather can be poor.

Very few will have been briefed that their point of entry, their welcome to Ireland, will be through a chronically congested, Third World airport.

The current Dublin airport cannot cope with 22 million passengers a year, nor will it ever be able to cope regardless of how many new terminals are built.

The solution must be to follow the examples of cities such as Athens and Oslo and start afresh in a greenfield site, further from the city but close to motorway and high-speed rail links.

There is plenty of land to the west, south-west or even further north of the city that fits the bill. Kinnegad International Airport, your time must surely have come. - Yours, etc,

NEIL HOLMAN, Pembroke Road, Dublin 4.