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About Dublin Airport

Dublin Airport is by a large margin the busiest and most extensive air hub in Ireland and rates itself as one of the top 10 airports in Europe by traffic. A recent Wiki article though rates it at number 14 in Europe with 20.5 million users in 2009 which is a 12.6% drop on 2008.

Dublin Airport began life in 1940 with the first flight I January of that year to Liverpool taking off from a grass airfield surface. In 1941 the beautiful listed airport building opened, designed by Desmond the brother of future double term serving Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald. The building is still visible and can be admired from the bridge linking Terminal one to Pier D by looking to the left as you cross.

In the 1980′s a new air traffic control tower and runway at 8,650 ft (2,640 m) long. This was a crucial decision at the time which in time limits Dublin Airport to planes with an operational capacity to around Beijing. In 2008, the Dublin Airport Authority put plans for a 3,660 m (12,008 ft) new runway on hold for “three to four years” due to cost cutting and feedback from long haul operators. Thus Dublin Airport will not in the near future host the Dreamliner or have non stop flights to Australia.

Currently all flights operate from terminal one which was built in 1972 and originally designed to handle only 5 million passengers a year. Extensive work was carried out in the 90′s and this decade to allow the terminal to handle the massive amount of passengers currently using the facility. This included a large extensions, redesigns, a new check in area in basement (area 14 used by Aer Lingus) and in 2007 the launch of Pier D (a budget airline designed facility with no air bridges). Terminal one also host US immigration agents, being along with Shannon Airport, the only two airports outside the US with border clearance procedures.

In 2005 though the Dublin Airport Authority was ordered to build Terminal 2 which is due to be operational in November 2010. The design was made by London based Pascall and Watson whose other works include Terminal 5 at Heathrow outside of London.

Terminal two will be able to handle an additional 15 million passengers, bringing the airport capacity to an impressive 35 million passengers a year. This would put the airport at full capacity within the top 30 airports in the world by passenger movement although current economic conditions and Ryanair’s capacity cuts make this unlikely in the near future.

Terminal 2 also features a new US immigration clearance facility continuing the unique offering that US bound tourists can land at non international terminals, already cleared to enter the states.

Passenger simulation tests will be carried out in Terminal two in July of this year with test flights happening by November 2010. The finished terminal took an estimate nine million man hours to complete with an astonishing 95,000 cubic meters of concrete and 20,000 light bulbs installed. The project will come in at around €600 million once completed.

The square footage of both terminals is 150,000 square meters, divided equally between the two terminals. Outside of Terminal two there is an additional 2,000 parking spaces adding the existing 3,600 short-term and 14,400 long-term spaces. Also outside of Terminal two is room for two paused projects, a four star hotel and a metro station for the proposed underground link to Dublin city center. It is expected these plans will get the go ahead once the economic forecast is better and passenger numbers rise again.

Before the much fabled Celtic Tiger and subsequent massive investment in transportation links, Ireland was a difficult destination to traverse with a car. The removal of many of the rail lines installed by the British and high cost of internal flights still made it the most attractive mode of getting around the Emerald Isle.

Now though with motorways opening to get you from Dublin to most of the cities and of course the M50 motorway bypassing the clogged arteries of Dublin City, things are much improved. They have even removed the toll plaza from the middle of the M50 which used to cause massive tailbacks and are currently widening the motorway too. Beware though, the toll still exists using number plate recognition technology so ask at the counter about this or pay at any newsagent or shop which displays the M50 payment logo. Tolls exist on quite a few other motorways to offset the cost of construction so either carry a coins or avoid the motorways and traverse the back roads.

We drive on the left and speeds are displayed in kilometers unless you cross into Northern Ireland which although also driving on the left still has the imperial display of miles. The rules of the road are displayed on the Road Safety Website – Rules of the Road for your review.

The warm waters of the North Atlantic Drift create moderate temperatures all year around but the mild winds from the Atlantic also bring rain two out of three days! There is a marked difference though in rainfall from the west to the east, the south west averages 2,540 mm and Dublin only 762 mm. Maybe this explains why over 70% of the population live within 90 kilometers of the capital city.

The largest cities of Ireland are as follows:

Dublin 1.1 million

Cork 120,000

Galway 66,000

Limerick 54,000

Waterford 45,000