‘It’s not a nice atmosphere’: Dead calm in Dublin Airport

At 11.16am on Tuesday there is no luggage going through the system at Dublin Airport. Not one single bag is moving from planes to baggage halls, or from check-in desks to planes ready for take-off. The airport is open, but at a virtual standstill. Over the course of two hours, just a handful of passengers make their way through the sprawling complex. None look happy to be there. “It gives me the chills to see it like this,” says the airport’s head of external communications, Siobhán O’Donnell. Before Covid-19 changed everything, 750 planes would take off and land at Dublin Airport daily. On Tuesday just 28 are listed, and most of these are almost empty. “On this day last year we had 102,000 passengers,” says O’Donnell. In the first wave of flights between 6am and 8am – the airport’s busiest time – 36 people go through Terminal 1 and 56 people depart from Terminal 2. No one wants to travel now. There is no one going on holidays and anyone coming or going is most likely being repatriated.” Most of the airport’s services have been “mothballed”, waiting until things reopen. When this happens, they will look different to how people remember them. Already, plexiglass dividers have been installed at the cash registers in the shops, and the signs alerting people to the need to socially distance are everywhere.<br/>