Dublin Airport staff will only transfer passengers arriving too early for flights to the new designated “waiting areas” outside the terminals if queues start to form at peak times.
Graeme McQueen, media relations manager at Dublin Airport, said staff will move people to detention areas if there is an “accumulation of numbers” in queues at airport terminals.
The DAA airport operator expects about 46,000 passengers to leave the airport on Thursday, which was close to the daily forecast for the holiday weekend.
Nearly 250,000 passengers have to travel through the airport between Thursday and Monday.
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People were passing through the airport in less than an hour, and departing passengers took less than half an hour to pass through Terminal 1, McQueen told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.
If queues build up at terminals and dump outside, staff will check boarding passes or booking confirmations and direct those who have arrived too early to the waiting areas.
The airport operator has said it plans to put bad weather covers, seats and toilets in the waiting areas over the next few days if needed.
“It’s not about holding people back unnecessarily. We’ll only do that if it’s absolutely necessary. The goal is to make sure no one misses a flight this weekend,” McQueen said.
The long delays last Sunday caused more than 1,000 people to miss their flights due to staff shortages that forced the airport to close security lanes.
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Passengers flying on short-haul flights are asked to arrive two and a half hours before the departure of their flight and passengers on long-haul flights three and a half hours.
Luggage check-in is recommended to arrive one hour in advance.
McQueen said the airport was confident it could get passengers through “in a long time” if they adhere to the recommended arrival times and no waiting areas will be needed.
Field staff will monitor any accumulation of numbers. The goal of the contingency plan was to prevent the build-up of people arriving too soon from having a “side impact” on people arriving at the airport at the right time and then losing their flights, he said.
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“If it gets to the point that things are taking too long, this plan will start and the ground crew will make a decision and communicate it to the ground passengers,” he said.
“We will also try to do it through social media.”