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LAST UPDATE | 13 Dec 2022
THE PUBLIC NEEDS assurances that they will not face disruption at Dublin Airport over the Christmas period, Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said today.
She began Leaders’ Questions by first wishing Micheál Martin well into the future, stating that it would be their last exchange with him as Taoiseach.
Martin and Leo Varadkar are due to rotate roles on Saturday.
She said people’s travel plans have been thrown into chaos, stating that airport users have told stories of being “sent from pillar to post” when seeking information following the cancellation of their flights.
McDonald said she accepts that there have been some knock-on effects from disruption at other airports, but said one cannot shy away that once again there has been a real failure to prepare at Dublin Airport. “And there has not been a word from the Minister for Transport, Deputy Éamon Ryan,” she said.
Martin said that it is the cold weather that is to blame for the disruption. When references were made to Ryan being “asleep at the wheel”, Martin said he had been sitting next to Ryan at meetings about it, reassuring her that “he’s wide awake”.
“Could I reassure the deputy that Eamon Ryan is not asleep… he is anything but fast asleep at this particular juncture,” he said. He said a meeting with the DAA has taken place.
Issues with the DAA “do need to be followed through with the authority,” said Martin.
“We need to make sure that capacity exists within the Dublin Airport Authority in terms of de-icing and preparing for extreme weather events to make sure that key connectivity through aviation is maintained. State agencies are established by law, they are resourced and people are appointed to senior positions.
“There is an obligation on the agencies to be prepared and respond to situations such as this. That said, Dublin Airport is not the only airport that has had challenges through this period. Manchester Airport has had challenges and Heathrow Airport has had significant challenges, some of which have spilled over to Dublin Airport,” he said.
Airport response
This evening, the daa responded to the criticisms made in the Dáil.
The daa Chairman Basil Geoghegan said that “notwithstanding current sub-zero temperatures” Dublin Airport’s Winter Readiness Plans has meant that all runways and taxiways at Dublin Airport have “remained open and fully operational throughout”.
He added: “Whilst flight cancellations and delays over recent days relate to difficulties encountered by individual airlines de-icing their own aircraft or airports being closed in the UK, the Taoiseach made an important point today about the need for winter resilience.
“Such operational resilience is ultimately reliant on ensuring an appropriate regulatory and financial framework that recognises the critical role Dublin and Cork airports play in the Irish economy and global connectivity.”
Flight disruptions
The cold weather has been causing further travel disruption today as flights in and out of the country, in particular to and from the UK, have been cancelled and delayed.
In a statement given this morning, Dublin Airport said that it is “open and fully operational.”
“Weather disruption in the UK continues to impact on flight schedules, with 8 outbound flights & 10 inbound flights cancelled so far. Passengers due to fly are advised to contact their airline for info regarding their flight,” the statement further read.
A Status yellow freezing fog warning is in place for the Northern half of the country today while a status yellow low temperature/ ice warning remains in place for the entire country for the rest of the week.
None of the flights in or out of both Cork and Shannon Airports appear to have been cancelled today as of yet. Passengers can check the status of their flight online.
Ryanair has issued a warning on long security queues in Dublin Airport Terminal One has they say only 9 of the 15 security lanes were open at 5am.
Update for pax travelling through @DublinAirport pic.twitter.com/0QLSusZPfE
— Ryanair (@Ryanair) December 13, 2022
The UK is currently experiencing even colder weather than Ireland in places, as the temperature has dropped below -10 degrees in rural parts of Scotland.
There has been snowfall and ice across the country, including in London, as a Level 3 Amber warning is in place for the whole of England, as temperatures are expected to struggle to climb above freezing in parts of the country.
London right now turning into a snowy wonderland pic.twitter.com/LlP5BKLuWV
— Scott Duncan (@ScottDuncanWX) December 11, 2022
The 7:10am flight to London Heathrow from Dublin Airport was cancelled, and the 8:50am flight to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport has also been shelved.
Later today the 3:55pm flight to London Gatwick out of London has been cancelled, as well as the 16:45pm flight to Barcelona.
Cancellations will go into this evening, with the 7:45pm flight to London Stanstead having already been called off.
Some flights to the UK have not yet been cancelled and are still scheduled as normal, but passengers are advised to check in with their airline to get the latest updates on any booked journeys.
The next four flights to arrive at Dublin Airport are delayed, and passengers can expect delays throughout the course of the day.
The 11:55am flight due in from Milan has been cancelled, as well as the 12:35pm inbound flight from Warsaw, the 12:50pm flight from Krakow, and the 15:55 flight that was due to come in from London City Airport.
Irish Rail has said that a full schedule is planned to operate as normal, although several delays have been experienced already today.
Good morning. We will be online throughout the day with updates on services until 21:00hrs this evening. A full schedule is planned to operate 🚂. Fáilte romhat ar maidin. -CL
— Iarnród Éireann (@IrishRail) December 13, 2022
Please remember that the wearing of face coverings is advised on public transport. pic.twitter.com/QK5I30YAmT
Bus Éireann have had to cancel multiple services so far this morning as road conditions are making it difficult to tackle adverse road conditions in some places.
Passengers are advised to check for updates before setting out for planned travel.
With reporting by Christina Finn
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A country living in the Stone ages.
@Davy Evans: would you give over. For God sake, people love moaning.
There’s challenges in this industry & people don’t want to work there. It’s tough in times of bad weather in the good times, but with people just constantly giving out and media needing to fill their websites to get clicks, it exacerbates the problem and has a negative sentiment against those that work in the industry. Sometimes this negative sentiment can manifest itself in physical harm and/or abusive language directed at them. All they are trying to do is to earn a living.
Anyway, rant over. Cheerio.
@Andy O’B: oh come on! Most European countries have much worse weather for much longer periods and continue to function…a smattering of snow and a bit of frost and Dublin airport is paralysed! Ridiculous!
@Andy O’B: I agree, most other countries face delays and cancellations when faced with weather events and deicing of aircraft is essential as is safe runways and taxiways and ramps and during falling snow this can be hard. As I write Manchester seems to have issues and maybe some of the cancelled flights could be due to other airport’s issues. Ireland is the great land of knockers unfortunately. What about a headline saying 143 flights managed to get into and out of Dublin airport despite snow and ice and limited viability… Is it too much to ask to be positive? It is a mindset
@Davy Evans: ya know where the airport is then.
@Ronan Skelly: kinda supporting Andys point there, most European countries which have “much worse weather for longer periods” are far more experienced and equipped to deal with such conditions.
@Ronan Skelly: you read my mind dead right
@The Divils Avocado: Yes, but they also have staff to work….Airlines at Dublin are operating with a minimum of staff members in all positions…
@Aidocasey: It’s just like hospitality. Any industry demanding a lot of staff regardless of footfall just cannot strike the balance. If you have 1 passenger, you need pilots, stewards, ground crew, mechanics, sales teams, fire crew, atc, security staff, airport police, check in and boarding staff etc etc. To pay all these people the high wages needed to attract and keep staff, particularly in Dublin where the rental and housing market is insane means the DAA and airlines need to increase landing fees, terminal fees etc, passed onto the airlines. Then the cost of air fares will rise so less people will travel on holidays or leisure travel. There will be less people travelling so there won’t be enough budget to employ the staff and the vicious circle continues.
@Andy O’B: I’m not completely disagreeing with you, but if these major well off companies treated their staff a bit better and didn’t pay minimum wage, these services would be 20 times better. The gap between the rich and the working class (never mind the gap between rich and poor) is getting out of control.
@Andy O’B: he didn’t say anything about the workers at the aerport…he just said basically as a nation we are way behind in some services…
@Aidocasey: that’s a management problem
@Davy Evans: Hop on the next available flight then why don’t you
@Johnny Kelly: The answer is not to run away. Stay and try change things.
Such a shock, we have never seen weather like this before.
Manchester Airport is closed, so the problems don’t just happen at Dublin.
@Dave Byrne: Suppose if Dublin is closed people can always fly to one of our other international airports
every time it snows a little there is this chaos. will they never learn
Copenhagen Airport is at freezing point and operating normally, including Ryanair flights. Yet Dublin Airport are putting the blame entirely on airlines like Ryanair for lack of provision of de-icing. DAA provides the permits, infrastructure & space for systems to operate or not. Why are airlines facing issues at DUB when central northern & east Europe can operate reasonably smoothly? We have systems not been tested periodically since October in preparedness? Same old, same old “we couldn’t have foreseen it” excuses will be forthcoming or the “we rarely need it”. We are of a latitude of clashing weather fronts, inevitably our share of icing days. De-icing needs to be provided close to take-off before it loses affect, DAA need to provide areas close to runways for these ops.
How come other European countries can manage this and here it’s like the end of time. Can’t get there act together like they never knew this was coming and guess what we are in winter
@John Quinn: 400 years of oppression and poverty have stunted our ability to develop anywhere near the same level as the imperial Euros. Ask people if they would rather have an international airport or €20
I lived in Reykjavík for four years,often traveling to England to visit family. I never once had a cancelled flight. The buses ran on time too.
I was one of the lucky ones with only a 3hr delay to Edinburgh, Ryanair communication horrendous, people flying to Brussels at 8am still in the terminal 7 hours later and their flight was probably cancelled after all, they were sitting in the plane for 4 hours then told to get a coffee and stretch their legs for 45 mins, most frustrating, customer service dropping calls, sole attendants getting it in the neck from irate passengers.
How come other European countries can manage this and here it’s like the end of time. Can’t get there act together like they never knew this was coming and guess what we are in winter
How can there be a big knock on, flights into Dublin were cancelled and there were a lot of them.
The Bottom line is the Airport is an absolute disgrace to let this occur. Airports around the world run on temperatures a lot lower than we experienced.
So who is at fault my Daughters flight from carcassonne was cancelled and airline said not their fault hotels, car rental all lost
@James Johnson: It is not the airport’s job to make sure the airlines planes are in a condition to fly. The airport did their job and it was fully operational. It is the airlines job to have their planes ready to fly, but they did not. The airlines failed in their job. There’s an awful lot of people complaining about the airport even though it is 100% the airlines who failed.
Took us 8 hours to get off yesterday. Which I could deal with even with a small baby but it was the lack of information that was frustrating. We were stuck on go to gate for the entire day and nobody had any info if our flight would be going at all. Multiple different flights also directed to go to the same gate at same time didn’t help either. It was a mess.
@Sean Partidge: we were delayed too then we sat on the plane for a further 3.5 hrs and eventually took off but the provisions on board were insufficient , plane full of hungry people with food for less than 1/4 . No water either . The food trolly started selling the meals at first few rows and ran out but the children on flight were further down the back and got nothing ! A tub of pringles or a bar of chocolate after waiting to depart at 1:30 pm and finally arrived at destination at 11pm !
How come other European countries can manage this and here it’s like the end of time. Can’t get there act together like they never knew this was coming and guess what we are in winter
@John Quinn: You obviously don’t read or watch tv… Dublin Airport is not the only airport suffering..
Liverpool also closed !!
500 million profit for Ryanair this year and they Fail to Hire enough de-icers for their fleet during the Winter months to me is a sackable offence.!!
Wouldn’t happen in Cork Airport
FFS
The DAA strike again, made all their gritting crews redundant last year, expected local farmers to provide gritting machines & they didn’t turn up!
No frost in Dublin this morning. A balmy 2°
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