Ray Kennedy spends the day at Dublin Airport's Terminal 2 ahead of its official opening in November.
Terminal 2 rises like the giant wing of an airliner to dominate the Dublin skyline, a vast silver and glass symbol of what Ireland was about to become before the economy decided otherwise.
View images of Terminal 2
Built at enormous cost and with great expectations, this somewhat controversial piece of crucial infrastructure opens next month.
At the final ‘live’ dress rehearsal for full flight operations I joined a couple of thousand other volunteers as they lined up for check in, had their passports examined and bags searched while they passed through security in a shining linen and glass filled departure lounge.
The building is enormous, there's no other word for it. As you walk toward it from the car park at Dublin Airport its glass frontage reflects every other building in sight. Including the now decrepit- looking 1970s built Terminal One. It was never much to look at, but beside its new youthful sibling it looks positively horrid.
Both of these terminals will exist side-by-side and operate as the main international gateway to Ireland. At best all Terminal One can hope for is a lick of paint to try to smarten it up. Although in fairness to the DAA, a fair bit of smartening up has been done inside T1 in recent years to make it look half-decent. Pier D for instance is quite contemporary, even if it feels like you've walked halfway to Ashbourne to board your aircraft.
Terminal 2 is completely different. It's everything a modern airport should be.
It's clean and bright, open and airy. The check in desks form a straight line, queues don't back up into each other. Operations take place on different floors, escalators whisk you from check in to a mezzanine security area beyond where a grand retail and restaurant experience awaits while you take in dramatic views of the airfield. The largest escalator in Ireland then takes you on a gentle descent to the boarding gates.
Yes, many other airports have had facilities like these for decades, but many haven't, Dublin included. Taken from a passenger and aviation point of view, Terminal 2 is as good as any of the highly regarded airports around the globe. But then that was always the plan.
As Ireland's economy roared and passengers lined up in car parks to spend hours passing through an airport that was bursting at the seams, debate raged about how and when we would upgrade our airport to service our newly found world class economy.
Some of that debate has been forgotten as our struggling finances picked up the final bill. It included an impressive upgrade of the road system at the airport and those tweaks with Terminal One. Now that it's finished and we don't have to be embarrassed bringing world leaders through Collinstown Aerodrome anymore, we're not quite sure we want it.
Too late… it opens next month and from what I saw at the trial runs we will soon wonder how we survived without it. While some will question if we can survive with it. However, along with the new Convention Centre, the motorway system, and the Aviva stadium it joins recently completed projects that can help generate business in Ireland.
At Terminal 2 pre-clearance for the United States, in a state-of-the-art passport section built to Homeland Security specification, DAA believe they can attract major carriers to use T2 as a transit stop to America. Ethihad, US Airways, Continental and Aer Lingus are already among those on board, with others like Air India and BA having a sniff around. Actually Aer Lingus will fly both short-haul and long-haul from T2. Over at T1 Ryanair will dominate, along with the other short haulers.
As the dry running ended and the ‘passengers’ boarded and disembarked fake flights and aircraft, eventually it was time for the baggage hall. There's no point talking this up, it was just a baggage hall. What happens next makes it all worthwhile though. For generations returning to Dublin from holiday to the dingy, grotty arrivals hall in T1 meant you knew you were home and possibly planning your next trip before getting to the taxi.
Walk through the arrival gates on the top floor of Terminal Two though, and an impressive sculpture, fronting a glass-lined wall with gleaming sunshine and the hills of north Dublin in the distance means you'll probably be glad to get home and be happy you travelled through Terminal 2. It will be up and running by the end of November.
Ray Kennedy
