Irish
Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport to cost an estimated €395 million - 46% above 2005 forecast cost
By Finfacts Team
Aug 30, 2006, 20:00

The Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) announced today that it is is build a new €395 million terminal at Dublin Airport capable of handling up to 15 million passengers per year.

Last year, the Government gave the go-ahead for the building of a second terminal at Dublin airport that was to cost up to €170 million directly and €270 million, including the additional cost of site preparation and support infrastructure such as roadways, aprons and contact stands.

Today's estimated cost is 46% above the forecast cost of €270 million in April 2005 and each passenger passing through Dublin Airport will have to pay a levy of €7.50.

The DAA did not disclose who got their costings so wrong in 2005.

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Kuala Lumpur International Airport opened in 1998 - Last March, a low-cost airline terminal that can handle 10 million passengers annually, opened at Kuala Lumpur's impressive modern airport. It took less than a year to build at a cost of €27 million.

Construction of T2 is due to begin in the second quarter of next year and the new terminal will open in the Autumn of 2009.

The DAA said that T2 will "transform the passenger experience" for travellers using Dublin Airport and raise capacity at the airport to a potential 35 million passengers per year.

An improvement wouldn't be difficult given the chaos at the airport at the bank holiday weekend in early August. The Government's delay in trying to agree on who would run the new terminal - the existing State operation or a private company - forced the DAA to build a long temporary wood gangway to ease the congestion at Pier A of the existing terminal.

“T2 will provide an elegant and contemporary gateway for 21st century Ireland,” said DAA chairman Gary McGann. “It provides a cost effective solution to Dublin Airport’s current capacity deficit that meets the Government’s requirement for delivery by 2009 and it represents a further significant milestone for the DAA in its commitment to deliver on its key  shareholder and customer objectives.”  

The second terminal should have been built a decade ago and today, the Dublin Airport Authority was spinning the development as if it was all the conclusion of serios planning.

The DAA bragged that T2 will be a bright, modern building designed specifically to meet travellers’ needs. It will feature large airy spaces in areas such as check-in, baggage reclaim, security and the departures lounge. The 75,000 square metre terminal will also have dedicated facilities to meet the needs of business travellers and families travelling with young children. The public areas will create a calm and relaxing environment for arriving and departing passengers alike. 

The planning application for T2 will be lodged this week with Fingal County Council together with a planning application for a new pier building (Pier E), an improved internal road network, a major utilities upgrade and a range of other associated works. The total cost, at current prices, of the terminal and the other new infrastructure for which planning permission is being sought is just over €600m.  

T2 will be built close to the roundabout on the existing approach road to Terminal One. As part of the plan for T2, the internal roads at Dublin Airport will be upgraded and reconfigured to create separate dedicated approach routes for T1 and T2. Locations for a future Metro station and a ground transportation centre are also provided in the development plan.

T2 is a three-storey, curvilinear building that sits astride the main access road to Terminal One. The building has two main components  - a check-in area and a departures and arrivals area – connected by a link that forms part of the central spine of the new building. The way in which T2 sits astride the road means that all arriving vehicular traffic for the existing passenger terminal will pass under this link on its way to T1.

In the spacious new check-in area passengers will find almost 60 traditional check-in desks and ample self-service kiosks and self-serve bag drop positions. Having passed through a centralised security area, they will enter a large departures lounge with retail and catering outlets providing views over the airfield.  Passengers will then continue onto the boarding gates in the new Pier E to board their aircraft.

The new facilities allow arriving passengers move from gate to landside through the centre of the terminal without a change in levels. Another feature of T2’s design is that all passengers will pass through the heart of the building whether they are departing or arriving.
 
Aer Lingus is expected to be the primary user of T2 and the new terminal will also be home to other transatlantic and intercontinental carriers. The new 24,000 square metre Pier E facility, which is perpendicular to T2, will have gates for up to 19 short-haul aircraft or up to eight long-haul aircraft.

DAA chief executive Declan Collier said that while T2 would open in 2009, passengers using Dublin Airport would begin to see improvements in facilities from later this year. Work is currently underway on Area 14, a new lower ground floor check-in area in T1 that will open this December. The construction of Pier D, which will open in Autumn 2007, is also progressing and it will create a vibrant new departures area with 14 new gates for fast turnaround short-haul aircraft.

“We are acting to deliver new capacity at Dublin Airport to meet the needs of the travelling public and our airline partners,” he added. “In recent years, the facilities at Dublin have not kept pace with the huge growth in passenger numbers. But with the advent of T2, Pier E and our plan to upgrade the entire airport campus, we will deliver a high-quality, cost-effective, contemporary gateway for Irish air travellers and visitors to this country alike. In this context we welcome the fact that the cost-effective basis of the plans we announce today, will be affirmed by the independent cost verification consultants appointed by the Government.”

He added that the plans for T2 and Pier E are key elements of a major Airport Development Programme at Dublin Airport that also includes a new parallel runway, an extension to the existing Terminal One facility and a range of other upgrades and improvements due to be delivered over the next 10 years.

The design and specification of T2 and its associated infrastructure has been developed following a detailed consultation process with the airlines and other key stakeholders at Dublin Airport. This process revealed significantly more aggressive growth plans on the part of the principal airlines based at the Airport than had been anticipated when the DAA published its initial draft airport development plans a year ago.

“Our commitment to addressing the requirements of all our airline customers, service providers and passengers as effectively as possible, has led to a  significant increase in the scope of our initial development plan and an acceleration in the delivery of some key supporting infrastructure,” said Declan Collier.

 “To deliver the plans we announce today and the other essential infrastructure required, the DAA’s longer-term development plan for Dublin Airport will exceed the €1.2bn outlined in last year’s initial projections. We are currently engaged with the Regulator and other stakeholders with regard to the detail of this future investment.”

T2 has been designed by a project team comprising Arup, Pascall + Watson and Mace. The consortium was appointed as project manager and designer for T2, Pier E and all associated integration works earlier this year. The firms have previously worked on other major airport projects such as Heathrow’s Terminal 5, Beijing’s new Terminal 3, Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok International Airport and Seeb International Airport in Oman.