How long does Aer Lingus Express Bag Drop take in Dublin Airport?

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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I normally aim to arrive around 60 minutes before a flight and it's plenty.

This time I will be dropping in a bag. How much extra time do I need to allow?

From looking at the website, it's only minutes?

https://www.aerlingus.com/travel-information/aer-lingus-news/express-bag-drop/

Are there ever long queues?

Update from the staff member on duty.
They close the bag drop off for European flights at T - 40 minutes.
If you arrive an hour early, your bag will definitely get on. However, if you get delayed by security, you might not.

If you arrive after the bag drop, you can still go through security, but if you have more than a bag of liquids, you will have to abandon them.

At the gate, they will take your luggage from you and put it into the hold.

Brendan
 
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Should be only a few minutes. They usually have a good few staff to deal with this. Are you going during the week or the weekend? First thing in the morning or later on? All these issues naturally will influence queue times.
 
I've used it a few times and it's only taken me minutes each time, and that includes when the Monday morning US bound flights have the AL area quite busy.

The biggest mistake I see most people make is to attach the luggage tag somewhere on their bag that isn't easily read by the scanner after they place the bag on the belt. Ideally, the tag with bar-code should be to the top so it's easily scanned by the overhead sensor after you pop it on the belt.
 
Just to be aware the closing time for bags to be checked in is in excess of the time you might need to get to your gate.

Because the automated bag drop is so efficient I recently did not leave any extra time on arrival at the airport. So I may have arrived with about 50 mins or so before departure. I had FastTrack so I wasn't worried about security. However, my bag was not accepted so I tried it a couple of times wasting maybe 5 mins, then since the machine did not inform me that it was too late to check-in bag so I queued at a manned bag-drop desk who then after about 10 mins told me it was too late. So in the end I had to dump my toiletries and barely made my flight.

Lesson if you are checking a bag you need to leave extra time.
 
cian8 said:
Just to be aware the closing time for bags to be checked in is in excess of the time you might need to get to your gate.
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Hi Cian

That is a very good point.

I checked the Aer Lingus website and I could not find any mention of a cut-off time for the bag drop. I phoned Customer Service and he told me that there was no cut-off time for the bag drop. If I arrive too late, my bag might get on the plane, but I might not get through security quickly enough. He seemed to think that a bag dropped in 30 minutes beforehand would get on the plane.

Brendan
 
Brendan, if you have time the evening before you can drop your bag off then. Could reduce stress in the morning.
 
I have updated the original post based on my experience on Saturday morning.

Update from the staff member on duty.
They close the bag drop off for European flights at T - 40 minutes.
If you arrive an hour early, your bag will definitely get on. However, if you get delayed by security, you might not.

If you arrive after the bag drop, you can still go through security, but if you have more than a bag of liquids, you will have to abandon them.

At the gate, they will take your luggage from you and put it into the hold.

The bag tagging and drop off took 2 minutes max.
 
my bag might get on the plane, but I might not
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Open to correction, but I thought after Lockerbie that if passengers didn't make the flight, their checked in bags would be taken off the plane?
 
While this is too late for your planned flight Brendan it may benefit someone else. You now have self check in bag drop just inside the main entrance Terminal 2 (It is probably in T 1 also). No delay, just pop your luggage on the platform thingy. It spits out your ticket/receipt and then proceed on to security
 
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