Now Landing at the Dublin Airport

While it is difficult to capture the action of an airport such as Dublin Airport, as William Langewiesche said, "The story of how aviation became practical as a means of transportation...is the story of how the world became small." While workers in today's globalized economy cooperate in major ways in the online space (making travel for business less necessary,) the advent of practical transportation by plane changed the international work dynamic incredibly. The ability of workers in Dublin to cooperate with those all over the world, as we read about when we focused specifically on the Google organization in the first half of the semester, relies not only on teams in various cities but on effective communication between those teams- and, when necessary, ability for team members to travel to meet with one another face-to-face. Now, according to the Dublin Airport website, "Dublin Airport manages an average of 60,000 passengers per day, rising to 80,000 during the peak season, and more than 600 aircraft movements every day." All of these passengers- whether they are coming to or leaving from Dublin for personal, leisure, or business reasons- are part of the globalized Dublin- a Dublin whose influences and ideas extend far beyond city limits or Ireland's borders. I also found it interesting, on the "Filming and Photography" section of the website, to learn that there is a 250 euro per hour charge to film within Dublin Airport, as far as I understand, for commercial reasons. While the website does not specifically mention use of photography in the airport for research purposes, I wonder what the response would be if I were to request permission to photograph as part of a research project. I fear it would not be positive, because airports are so necessarily focused on security of individual passengers. While I couldn't capture the kind of departure and arrival images I have hoped, Dublin Airport plays an important role in Dublin's global identity because it allows the people of Ireland to see the rest of the world and vice versa.