Back to Dublin Airport Terminal 1. Retail, Retail, Everywhere…
Doughnuts on the Mound 4
In this feeble excuse for a day out to Dublin:
- Cheap flights, Cheap flights, Could have gone by sea…
- The joy of Birmingham Airport at 6 am in the morning
- FR661 Birmingham Airport to Dublin Airport
- The Wonder of Dublin T1 Arrivals
- Doughnuts, Friends and Plane Spotting – Airplane Art Extra
- Back to Dublin Airport Terminal 1 – Retail, Retail, Everywhere…
- FR666 Dublin Airport to Birmingham Airport
- To the buses. Wait… buses?
- It’s about friends
With my time with my friends at an end, I was dropped off at Dublin Airport Terminal 1. I took the time to reacquaint myself with the palace, as well as do a few things before heading through security.
Gotta love the classic T1 architecture. Even if is missing the old departure board that used to dominate the space.
The only PPE this machine has… is snacks.
There was the option to buy Fast Track access – this was priced at €12.99 a go. Rather pricy for Fast Track.
€12.99 for FastTrack security
Such as finding the water fountains, and having comfort breaks – the mundane stuff.
It was also a chance to sit down for a bit, as my lower back was moaning that I should have stretched more before coming out – or at least slapped a heat pack on it.
With my body a little rested, I decided to go through security and into the maelstrom that’s The Loop – Dubin Airports retail segment.
Security was… abrupt… will be the term I’m going to use.
The queues were very actively managed (which is good to see), but tact seemed to lacking. However, it didn’t help that one passenger was chatting away, to the point they were asked to hang up – and only complied on the third time of asking.
I popped my bag into a scanning bin and went through the scanning arch. Thankfully, my bag wasn’t pulled aside this time, and I was free to proceed.
Straight in front of security is a brilliant idea (one I wish more airports would adopt) a place where one could either fill up their own water bottle or cheaply buy a bottle of water.
Whilst Costco prices are hard to beat, 500ml of water for €1 is a fair price – especially at an airport. They even manage to automate the payments now, so you can pay by card or cash.
It’s simple enough to do (and there are more than a few of these sales points around), but I’d love to see more airports engage in this sort of sales tactic for such a simple thing.
Airport water shouldn’t be overpriced – period.
I turned left out of habit – down towards the 300 Gates. I knew I should have turned right towards The Loop and the 100 Gates – but I just love this display of Irish light in the connector.
There’s a lot written about this display, but it can be taken a 100 different ways. I’ll let you decide which way you want to interpret it.
It’s also a wonderful contrast – literally 20 metres from where this photo was shot is one of the security lanes.
With those photos in the can, it was time to go past the retail experience that is “The Loop” – or the barrier between Security and the 100 Gates.
Shop till you drop
Kinder! … But no Kinder Eggs with A330s inside. A shame.
How to start an Airline. Extra lessons from Willie Walsh are available.
I did have a look – with not a lot grabbing my eye.
What was lacking, however, was seating. I headed towards the catering outlets and thankfully found a metal high chair to perch on – with a lot of the other seats taken at a lower level.
That’s not too bad in itself, however, seating demands were outstripping supply, to put it mildly.
It was at this point that Dublin had another shower to show the world that yes, it rains here.
Gotta love it when rains – when it rains – it rains.
I settled down to blog and write using the phone – not my preferred method of blogging, but good enough to get concepts and images loaded. As most of you want articles that have reasonable grammar and spelling when reading, I try to shy away from blogging on the move these days – except when I need to get something off my chest.
Perhaps I rely on tools such as Grammarly a bit too much to do my heavy lifting these days – but it’s sometimes the only way this blog can be readable.
Well. Sometimes.
Will two articles written to the point where they made some sense, I checked the clock – time was closing in.
I headed off to the 100 Gates, knocking off more steps as I was going along, and with the 10-minute hike from the main terminal, it’s always a good thing to allow extra time.
To the forbidden lands.
The old Terminal Building. Now DAA offices.
I wonder what happened to this airline?
Down the line.
Arriving at the 100 Gates, there’s not a lot – as this pier was built exclusively for shifting people in and out of the airport as fast as possible – although in the past, it was for the use of Low-Cost Airlines, with apron space being a limitation, anyone can be shoved there.
The 100 lands.
Do we need to go through this again? Don’t fight the sizer – you’ll lose.
I headed down the terminal – noting FR666 would be going from Gate 119 – on the ground floor of the 100 Gates.
Into the abyss.
Heading to the gate area it was standing room only, with people lining up to the door. Nothing like a well-managed queue.
This would be a long boarding process.
Eventually, the priority queue cleared, allowing everyone else to board. Whilst I was not in a hurry, the ground staff were processing people as fast as possible – mainly as the gate had gone from boarding to closed.
Yikes
Thankfully boarding was still in progress when this sign lit up, and I was accepted for travel. With a beep of my boarding pass and a check of my passport, I was allowed to head to the waiting aircraft.
Next: FR666 Dubin Airport to Birmingham Airport
This ain’t no upwardly mobile freeway…Oh no, this is the road, this is the airline, this is the airplane to hell…
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