Dublin Airport

Dublin Airport (IATA: DUB, ICAO: EIDW) is Ireland's main airport. The airport is located approximately 10 kilometres north of Dublin City in an area properly known as Collinstown. It is operated by Dublin Airport Authority, which also administers Shannon Airport and Cork International Airport. 17.1 million people passed through the airport in 2004, up 1.8 million people from 2003, an increase of around 8%. Dublin Airport is the 5th fastest growing European airport, and the 66th busiest airport in the world.

Dublin Airport mostly handles internal Irish flights and flights to Britain and Europe. Services to the United States also operate through Dublin, along with a handful of services to the Middle East. Dublin and Shannon are the only two European airports with U.S. border preclearance facilities. The airport is the headquarters of the national airline of Ireland, Aer Lingus, regional airline Aer Arann and Irish discount airline Ryanair (although London Stansted rather than Dublin is Ryanair's largest hub).

In 1936 the Irish Government established a new civil airline, Aer Lingus, which began operating from the military aerodrome at Baldonnel. However, the decision was made that a civil airport should serve the new air service. Collinstown, just north of Dublin, was selected as the new civil aerodrome. Construction of the new airport began in 1937. By the end of 1939 a grass runway, internal roads, car parks and electrical power and lighting were set up. The inaugural flight from Dublin took place on January 19, 1940 to Liverpool. In 1940 work began on a new airport terminal building. The terminal building, opened in 1941, was modeled on the bridge of a luxury liner and was awarded the Triennial Gold Medal of the Royal Hibernian Institute of Architects. Services were severely curtailed at Dublin Airport due to World War II, however, afterwards three new concrete runways were built and completed by 1947.

Throughout the 1950s Dublin Airport expanded with virtually uninterrupted traffic growth. Runway extensions and terminal enhancements were carried out to deal with the influx of traffic and passengers. New airlines began serving the airport also. These included British European Airways, Sabena and BKS. In 1958 a new transatlantic service was started by Aer Lingus via Shannon Airport. During the 1960s the number of scheduled carriers continued to grow and aircraft continued to evolve with technological, advancement. By the close of the sixties, a sizeable number of Boeing 737, BAC1-11, Boeing 707, Tridents and Boeing 720's were using Dublin Airport on a regular basis. By 1969 1,737,151 passengers travelled through Dublin Airport.

The advent of wide-bodied aircraft posed opportunities and challenges for aviation. 1971 saw Aer Lingus take delivery of the new Boeing 747. To cope with this a new passenger terminal capable of handling five million passengers per year was opened in 1972. Increases in passenger numbers throughout the seventies were far from impressive as in earlier decades. This was partly due to the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland, and two energy crises which sparked off a major worldwide economic recession. These situations did nothing to help the already troubled Irish aviation scene.

Throughout the 1980s regular daily services to/from Dublin were started from the regional Irish airports including Kerry Airport, Galway Airport, Sligo Airport and Derry Airport. Major competition, especially on the Dublin-London route, resulted in passenger numbers swelling to 5.1 million in 1989. In 1989 a modern 8,650-foot runway and a state-of-the-art air traffic control centre were completed. Dublin Airport continued to expand in the 1990s. New piers were added to the existing terminal building with new air bridges increasing capacity even more. In 1993 the United States-Ireland bilateral agreement was changed allowing airlines to operate direct transatlantic services to/from Dublin Airport. However, airlines must provide an equal amount of flights to Shannon Airport as well as Dublin Airport.

Like all airports across the world, Dublin Airport has felt the direct effect of the September 11th atrocities. Security, which has always been a high priority, has been heightened. There is a serious decline in transatlantic travel, and the plight of airlines throughout the world gives cause for concern. However Dublin Airport Authority is endeavouring to deal sensibly and reasonably with these challenges and is committed to meeting the demands of for air travel into the future.

Capacity

Overcrowding and undercapacity is a major problem at Dublin Airport. The existing terminal building is simply too small to deal with the numbers of passengers that use it. Both the Irish Government and the former Aer Rianta have come under fierce attack from the airlines, principally Ryanair, who are calling for a second terminal to be built.

It has been anticipated in recent years that a further runway would be built parallel to the existing runway 10/28, due in part to the daily congestion and backlog which can be observed morning and evening on the airports taxiways. Congestion caused by the fact that both arriving and departing aircraft must share the same runway for take-offs and landings during daily rush-hours. However due to budget constraints and further stubborness by the Dublin Airport Authority, nothing has been agreed on the matter for quite some time.

In 2004 it was announced that the proposed Pier D development would not go ahead as planned. Instead the Minister for Transport, Séamus Brennan, announced that a new terminal was likely. Ryanair has submitted proposals to build its own terminal, however, the airline's chief executive has an antagonistic attitude towards the Irish government which has the final say in the matter. Plans are also in motion for the break-up of Aer Rianta. This would mean that the airports at Cork and Shannon would be separate from Dublin Airport. However, Dublin Airport would inherit the debts of the other two. On 1st October 2004, Aer Rianta was renamed Dublin Airport Authority in preperation for this break-up. However it will be May 2006 at least before Cork Airport and Shannon Airport become separate entities.

Ground transportation

Dublin Airport is located just off the M1 Motorway (Dublin-Belfast road) approximately 10km North from the City Centre and 2km South of Swords.

There is currently no Rail Link from Dublin Airport to the City Centre and with Swords by means of a metro is envisaged under the Transport 21 plan.

Several companies offer frequent bus connections to Dublin City Centre, Belfast, Galway, Cork and nearby towns.

Airlines and destinations

The Dublin-London intercity air route is the busiest in the EU, with over 4.4 million passengers per annum and is the second busiest air route in the world (after Hong Kong-Taipei).

• Adria (Ljubljana)
• Aer Arann (Cork, Donegal, Galway, Isle of Man, Kerry, Sligo)
• Aer Lingus (Alicante, Almeria, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin/Schoenefeld, Bilbao, Birmingham, Bologna, Bordeaux, Boston, Bristol, Brussels, Budapest, Chicago/O'Hare, Dubai (from March 2006), Dubrovnik, Dusseldorf, Edinburgh, Faro, Frankfurt, Fuerteventura, Geneva, Glasgow/International, Gran Canaria, Hamburg, Jersey, Kraków, Lanzarote, Lisbon, Liverpool, London/Heathrow, Los Angeles, Lyon, Madrid, Malaga, Manchester, Marseille, Milan/Orio Al Serio, Milan/Linate, Munich, Naples, New York/JFK, Nice, Orlando (seasonal charter), Palma Majorca, Paris/CDG, Pozna??, Prague, Rennes, Riga, Rome/Fiumicino, Salzburg, Seville, Shannon, Tenerife, Toulouse, Valencia, Venice, Vienna, Warsaw, Zurich)
• Air Baltic (Riga, Vilnius)
• Air Canada (Toronto (seasonal, westbound SNN stop))
• Air France (Bordeaux, Paris/CDG)
• Air Malta (Malta)
• Air Southwest (Bristol, Newquay)
• Air Transat (Toronto (seasonal, westbound SNN stop))
• Air Wales (Cardiff, Norwich, Plymouth)
• Alitalia (Milan/Malpensa, Rome/Fiumicino)
• American Airlines (Chicago/O'Hare)
• bmi (London/Heathrow)
• bmibaby (East Midlands)
• British Airways Citiexpress/Loganair (Derry, Knock, Glasgow, London/Gatwick, London/Heathrow)
• BudgetAir/Futura (Alicante, Faro, Malaga, Nice, Tenerife)
• Centralwings (Katowice, ??ód??, Wroclaw)
• Cityjet (London/City, Malaga)
• Continental Airlines (Newark)
• CSA Czech Airlines (Prague)
• Delta Air Lines (Atlanta)
• Estonian Air (Tallinn)
• Eurocypria Airlines (Paphos)
• Euromanx (Isle of Man)
• EUjet (Kent)
• Finnair (Helsinki)
• FlyBE (Exeter, Southampton)
• FlyNordic (Stockholm/Arlanda)
• Germanwings (Cologne/Bonn)
• Gulf Air (Bahrain)
• Hapag-Lloyd Express (Hamburg, Stuttgart)
• Helios Airways (Larnaca, Paphos)
• Iberia (Barcelona, Madrid)
• Lithuanian Airlines (Vilnius)
• LOT Polish Airlines (Warsaw)
• Lufthansa (Frankfurt, Stuttgart)
• Luxair (Luxembourg)
• MALÉV Hungarian Airlines (Budapest)
• Ryanair (Aberdeen, Baden, Biarritz, Birmingham, Blackpool, Bournemouth, Bratislava, Bristol, Brussels/Charleroi, Carcassonne, Cardiff, Cork, Doncaster/Sheffield, Durham Tees Valley, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Eindhoven, Faro, Frankfurt/Hahn, Girona, Glasgow/Prestwick, Gothenburg, Hamburg/Lübeck, Humberside, Kaunas, Krakow, La Rochelle, Leeds/Bradford, Liverpool, Lódz, London/Gatwick, London/Luton, London/Stansted, Lódz, Malaga, Malmö, Manchester, Marseille, Milan/Bergamo, Murcia, Nantes, Newcastle, Paris/Beauvais, Pisa, Porto, Poznan, Reus, Riga, Rome/Ciampino, Salzburg, Valencia, Venice, Wroclaw)
• SAS (Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm)
• SkyEurope (Bratislava, Kraków)
• Spanair (Malaga, others)
• Swiss (Zurich)
• Transavia (Rotterdam)
• US Airways (Philadelphia)

This article is licenced under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Dublin Airport".

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