Hundreds of passengers’ bags continue to be lost at Dublin Airport, albeit “not at the scale that they were in the height of summer.” 

Travellers through the airport have often had a torrid experience this year, as the airport and airlines alike struggled to cope with the surge in demand for international travel after the end of international restrictions. 

“We’re still dealing with about 300-350 lost bags for each of the operators,” travel journalist Eoghan Corry told The Pat Kenny Show. 

“Two of the airlines handle their own bags; Ryanair have pretty much had a squeaky clean summer - the only airline that people weren’t giving out about. 

“Aer Lingus, most of their problems came out of the Heathrow transfers. 

“The two baggage handling companies, a little bit more complicated, they let about 40% of their staff go during COVID and then had difficulties getting rehired security clearances, drivers, all of those sorts of things. They’re still dealing with the residue of that problem.” 

Terminal 1 (T1) at Dublin Airport. Republic of Ireland.

At one point, there were 4,200 lost bags and Mr Corry said that the last time he had passed through Dublin Airport he had found “that big baggage mountain we used to see in the arrivals’ hall has gone down to a small hill at this stage.” 

Even bags that do arrive, often only do so after long delays and aviation insiders believe it could be many more months before things are entirely back to normal: 

“Some people are saying it’s going to take right through the winter to get back on that baggage, to that level of efficiency that we had before,” Mr Corry concluded.

Main image: A wheeled suitcase on a luggage belt at an airport terminal. Picture by: catwalkphotos / Alamy Stock Photo