Dublin Airport officially opened at 9:00am on January 19, 1940. The airport opened with just one flight a day to Liverpool and Collinstown, but was effectively mothballed during the Second World War, as Aer Lingus operated a twice-weekly service to Liverpool. Aer Lingus resumed its London service to Croydon in November 1945.

By 1947, flights departing from Dublin had ventured as far as Continental Europe, with Dutch airline KLM beginning the first European service to Dublin. New concrete runways were completed in 1948, and in 1950 - after ten years in operation - the airport had been used by a total of 920,000 passengers.

By the late 1950s, the original terminal was incapable of handling growing passenger numbers, so the new North Terminal was opened in June 1959. By the 1960s, new departure gate piers were added adjacent to the old terminal to cope with larger aircraft. However it soon it became apparent that the original terminal building could no longer cope with passenger demand. Work began in 1971 on a new terminal building designed to cater for an expected six million passengers per year. The new £10 million terminal opened in June 1972.

This documentary from 1977 goes behind the scenes at Dublin Airport for a day in the life of Flight 668 Dublin to Zurich, to see the preparation and the backup required for this flight which was scheduled for take-off on Friday 19th August 1977 at 1600 hours.

Presented and produced by Pat Feely.

First broadcast 18th September 1977

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