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. With the extraordinary success of Ireland's 'Celtic Tiger' economy, Dublin Airport has seen phenomenal growth in recent years. This demand has been driven by a huge increase in business travel to and from the country, a surge in demand for foreign holidays, city breaks, and flights to second homes abroad from a wealthier population, an increase in inward tourism, and a huge demand from Ireland's migrant workers, principally those from Eastern Europe, which has resulted in a large number of routes opening to new and interesting destinations (to give just one example, both LOT Polish Airlines and Aer Lingus opened a Warsaw-Dublin route in 2004 operating several days per week, both airlines have since gone daily with this route, with LOT even going double daily several days a week, such is the demand for flights to Poland and Eastern Europe). As the largest gateway to Ireland, over 18.4 million passengers travelled through the airport in 2005, a 1.3 million (or 8%) increase over 2004 (to put this into context, the population of Greater Dublin is approx. 1.3 million, and the Republic of Ireland just over 4 million). The main contributors to this growth in traffic were the airport's routes to Continental Europe and North America. Domestic and UK traffic showed a small decline. This was due to a reduction in connecting traffic between flights to and from regional Irish airports and the UK, as a result of a growing direct network between Ireland's regional airports and the UK - evidence in itself of the success of other airports in the country. Dublin Airport is the 5th fastest growing European airport, and the 66th busiest airport in the world.

Dublin Airport's route network is vast and its European network rivals that of any of the main European hubs. As well as the impressive offering of routes to Continental Europe, Dublin Airport offers several domestic Irish routes as well as the largest number of routes of any airport to Ireland's nearest neighbour, the United Kingdom (after Hong Kong-Taipei, the Dublin-London air corridor is the second busiest in the world, with flights from Dublin to all five London airports). Services to several destinations in the United States and Canada also operate through Dublin, along with services to Bahrain and Dubai in the Middle East. With a vast short-haul route network, Dublin Airport is now concentrating heavily on developing its long-haul offering. 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 and domestic airline Aer Arann and Irish no frills airline Ryanair (although London Stansted rather than Dublin is Ryanair's largest hub).

In October 2004, Aer Rianta was renamed the Dublin Airport Authority plc, following the State Airports Act 2004. All assets and liabilities previously owned by Aer Rianta transferred to the Dublin Airport Authority plc. The State Airports Act 2004 also established new airport authorities at Shannon and Cork Airports. The Shannon Airport Authority plc and the Cork Airport Authority plc have separate boards of directors and have been authorised under the Act to prepare business plans, which may in time lead to their full separation from the Dublin Airport Authority plc.

History

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. A gradual further watering down of Shannon's stopover status will come into effect from the end of 2006 until it disappears completely.

Like all airports across the world, Dublin Airport felt the effect of the September 11th atrocities, but was one of the few European airports not to record a decline in passenger numbers that year (the last year a decline in traffic was recorded was during the Gulf War). Security, which has always been a high priority, has been heightened. There was a serious decline in transatlantic travel (leading Aer Lingus and Delta to pull their services to Baltimore and New York (JFK) respectively) but this has since recovered. For 2006 Aer Lingus will be serving its existing destinations of New York (JFK), Boston Logan, Chicago O'Hare and Los Angeles but will be pulling the charter service to Orlando. They are facing stiff competition however from the American carriers. Continental are adding a second daily service to Newark, and Delta are resuming their daily service to New York (JFK) which supplements their existing daily to Atlanta. US Airways are resuming their daily Philadelphia service and Air Canada will again be flying to Toronto. Meanwhile, it is rumoured that United are seriously looking at introducing a service to Ireland. More US services are expected too from Aer Lingus in the future and additional long-haul aircraft have been ordered for this purpose.

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. As a result, a new pier (Pier D) is to be added to the original terminal and will be operational by 2007 which will add significant additional airside capacity. Meanwhile, a second terminal is to be built and operational by 2009. The blueprint for the future development of the airport allows for a third terminal to be built as and when this is required.

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.

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, however plans for the much anticipated underground rail link are at an advanced stage. The plan is for this metro line to connect with the the Green Line of Dublin's existing Luas light rail tram system on Dublin's south city centre at St. Stephen's Green. From there it will run through the north city centre, north to the airport, then further north to the burgeoning commuter town of Swords, which has many business links with the airport. The exact route between the city centre and the airport however is still undecided and the three possible routes were announced in February 2006 following public consultation. The possibilities include passing through either the huge suburb of Finglas, or the campus at Dublin City University and the suburb of Ballymun (which is undergoing a massive EUR2.5bn regeneration). Together with the proposed extensions to the Luas Green and Red tram lines, the metro to Dublin Airport will connect seamlessly with Dublin's bus and rail termini giving access to all major modes of transport in and from the city: Dublin Bus's vast bus network, Bus Eireann's nationwide bus network, Luas light rail, DART electrified overground railway, outer suburban rail services, as well as Irish Rail's inter-city rail services to Cork, Belfast, Galway, Waterford, Limerick, and Sligo. Until the metro is completed, 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, Inverness, Isle of Man, Kerry, Sligo)
• Aer Lingus (Alicante, Almeria, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin/Schoenefeld, Bilbao, Birmingham, Bologna, Bordeaux, Boston, Bristol, Brussels/National, Budapest, Chicago/O'Hare, Dubai, Dubrovnik, Dusseldorf, Edinburgh, Faro, Frankfurt, Fuerteventura, Geneva, Glasgow/International, Gran Canaria, Hamburg, Jersey, Kraków, Lanzarote, Las Palmas, 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)
• Austrian Airlines (Vienna)
• Blue1 (Helsinki)
• bmi (London/Heathrow)
• bmibaby (East Midlands)
• British Airways Citiexpress/Loganair (Derry, Knock, Glasgow, London/Gatwick)
• BudgetAir/Futura (Alicante, Faro, Malaga, Nice, Tenerife)
• Centralwings (Gdansk, Katowice, ??ód??, Wroclaw)
• Cityjet (London/City, Malaga)
• Continental Airlines (Newark)
• CSA Czech Airlines (Prague)
• Delta Air Lines (Atlanta, New York (JFK))
• Estonian Air (Tallinn)
• Eurocypria Airlines (Paphos)
• Euromanx (Isle of Man)
• 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, Manchester)
• MALÉV Hungarian Airlines (Athens, 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)
• TAP Air Portugal (Lisbon)
• Turkish Airlines (Istanbul)
• Transavia (Rotterdam)
• US Airways (Philadelphia)

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