Chris Cantell Discusses Travel: Dublin airport in trouble by Claudia Sonea

s Cantell Discusses Travel: Dublin airport in trouble
by Claudia Sonea
If you planned to visit any time soon Dublin, just give up the idea because you might become one of the thousands passengers that were left stranded on July 9 and also the next day, which means today. Dublin Airport was faced to divert and even cancel over 200 flights due to a radar malfunction.
We should be grateful to the controllers who preferred to cancel or divert flights than jeopardize passengers’ life. The problem with the radar is not new as last month in several occasions it failed and that was the main reasons for the arrival of the engineers of Thales, the radar system’s supplier, in Dublin at the beginning of this week. Yesterday, the problem came up again when the radar was unable to show the call signs used to identify aircrafts and their positions, route. At first they tried to land planes through other means, but because of the traffic created, controllers were forced to shut down runaway to all flights, according to the spokeswoman of the Irish Aviation Authority Lilian Cassin.
There was even an emergency meeting that tried to save as many flights as possible, stated the Dublin Airport Authority. Also the engineers of Thales will work even during the night so that the problem will be solved. However, in spite of all this efforts the Irish Aviation authority is still criticized for not solving the matter before getting into the current estate in which hundreds of passengers were diverted to other Irish airports like Belfast, Cork or Shannon and then obligated to travel 4 or 6 hours to get back to Dublin.
As it is, the radar’s malfunction couldn’t take place in another month but exactly in July when tourist travel increases. Up to this point all airports are full of aircrafts and expect the result of the Thales’ experts. More to come…


related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20080709/ap_tr_ge/travel_brief_ireland_airport_shutdown;_ylt=AibcU5PGXpVurk7XOhqKi2us0NUE

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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posted by Lucia Adamova