I have been travelling to Dublin a lot recently, with many trips through both Stansted and Dublin Airports.
Stansted is renowned for it’s long walks, but I think that Dublin Airport has now taken the crown for trying to make air travellers walk closer to their destination.
I had noticed some new buildings, that I originally took to be portacabins, or temporary site offices. Along with the various bits of construction equipment I assumed they were for the site workers while they built some new exciting extension.
Instead, those buildings were the new walkway to another set of gates. They have removed a couple of the older gates at the end of one of the “piers”, and attached this echoing, cheap and nasty tunnel that zig-zags for about half a mile to a new hut filled with cheap and nasty metal chairs and the most basic gates you will have ever seen. No screens with flight details, no-tannoys, a tacky queuing system and a door straight onto the airfield with a rickety wooden ramp down to the ground that has wire grate tacked onto it as an anti-slip measure.
So, Ryanair has become an even nastier experience that it was before, hurrah. A couple of weeks ago I had to use Easyjet for a change, and I was surprised how much better things are. The planes are more comfortable, with wider aisles, and the staff are more friendly and accomodating. Ryanair seem to be hunting for the last possible euro of profitability and are nowing dipping below the level of acceptance – I wonder how much more that travellers will take before they start voting with their feet.
