Dublin Airport Car Hire|Low cost car hire in Dublin

The World Athletics Championship concluded in Berlin last Sunday with the event proving to be a surprise success for the Irish team. Olive Loughnane was the star of the team claiming a silver medal in the grueling twenty kilometre walk event.

Both Dervla O’ Rourke and David Gillick also performed superbly at the games with O’ Rourke missing out narrowly on a medal coming fourth in the 110 metre hurdles event and Gillick finishing 6th as the fastest man in Europe in the four hundred metre event.

On Saturday August 22nd Irish Athletes including Loughnane were warmly greeted at Dublin Airport by enthusiastic supporters. She was met by her family including her three year old daughter. David Gillick and Paul Hession who reached the semi finals of the two hundred metre event were also in attendance.

The Dublin Airport Authority came in for more strong criticism last week as up to ninety passengers missed their flights due to security delays on the morning of Friday August 21st.

Aer Lingus stated that thirty five of their passengers missed flights while Ryanair say fifty of their passengers missed flights. According to Ryanair it was taking as long as forty five minutes to get through security. There have recently been some suggestions that Dublin Airport security staff are performing on a work to rule basis.

SIPTU have clearly stated however that any actions been taken by staff have not been approved by them. The DAA have also said they have not been informed of any staff protest actions. They laid the blame on passengers for not leaving enough time to get through security.

A recent report by the Dublin Airport Authority has shown traffic at Dublin Airport to have dropped by thirteen percent this July in comparison to the previous year.

The biggest drop (Fourteen and a half percent) came from continental Europe while traffic from the United Kingdom was down by ten percent. Domestic flight traffic dropped by twenty eight percent while routes to North America were down by eight percent.

The only location to record a rise in traffic was the Middle East which was up by one percent. A look at the current yearly position shows Dublin Airport has dealt with 12.2 million passengers this year which is a twelve percent drop on the previous year.

Some good news for Dublin Airport came in the shape of Norwegian Air Shuttle who has just begun new routes to Copenhagen and Oslo. They are the second biggest airline in Scandinavia after SAS. The Oslo flight will run Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays while the Copenhagen flight runs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Ever been left waiting at Dublin Airport because of a delayed flight? You arrive on time only to find that the person you are picking up is on a delayed flight. A new text service has been launched which will allow users to obtain up to date flight information.

Just enter the text “DUB ARR” followed by the flight number and send it to 53045.You will then be texted back with current details. It is vital that you observe all spaces. A correct example would be “DUB ARR FR271” .

Flight information will be provided for the previous three hours (landed) and twenty one hours ahead. Each text costs fifty cent. This covers all received texts also.

This could be a very useful service indeed. It may be worth a try next time you are picking someone up from Dublin Airport. Fifty cent is not much if it saves hours of waiting in the airport car park.

Ryanair look set to announce significant cuts to their Winter schedule at Dublin Airport. The airline has again blamed the Irish government’s airport tax for the cuts. A full announcement is expected from Ryanair chief Michael O’ Leary later today.

There seems to be no plans at present to reduce or remove the government tax. In the UK the airport tax will actually rise by a pound to eleven pounds in November.

Yesterday the airline announced plans for thirty nine new routes to the Canary Islands this winter.There will also be cutbacks at Stansted which is Ryanair’s busiest airport.

Strangely ten of the sixteen new routes confirmed actually depart from Irish or UK locations which show how profitable these markets still are for Ryanair.  There will be new flights from Dublin Airport to Gran Canaria and Lanzarote beginning in October. The number of aircraft based at Dublin airport looks set to drop to around eleven or twelve.

Ryanair have long since made their feelings known towards the tourist tax and yesterday made an official complaint to the European Commission over the fact that the Irish government has not applied the tax to domestic routes.