I arrived at a reasonable hour before my flight and as I had a flexible ticket was able to visit the Aer Lingus lounge in Terminal 2.

After the shuttle bus dropped me off there were two sets of escalators to get to security. Although I had a flexible ticket – the result of numerous schedule changes and flight cancellations by Aer Lingus – FastTrack is not included. I purchased it online for about EUR5, as the queues can be pretty long at Dublin on a Saturday. I was through in about 10 minutes, followed right behind by a once famous singing duo – Jedward. Scary.

The lounge access was included and I wound my way around the duty free shops until I located the lifts to the lounge. There are two in T2 and each has its own share of airlines who contract to use it. There are signs outside the doors so that you can check.

The split-level Aer Lingus lounge is pretty nice and has spectacular views over the terminal and runways.

Although it doesn’t look it, the lounge was fairly busy first thing with lots of flights to the US leaving in the early morning slot. It then thinned out as got quieter. The upstairs section, access available by a staircase next to the loos, remains tranquil.

There is a reasonable view of the main lounge with the model A350 from here. They have their own drinks area and a small selection of snacks.

On the ground floor there was a range of snack food, pastries, cheese, as well as a wide range of drinks – coffee, soft drinks etc. A good range of international newspapers as well as power sockets and free WiFi were available.

Nothing warm and nothing like at the Heathrow lounges by BA, but perhaps this will improve once the merger of Aer Lingus and BA happens properly.

It was a decent place to stay and as the traffic ebbs and flows you can find a seat to suit you. I enjoyed the large Emirates plane arriving and pulling in to the gate right in front of the floor to ceiling windows.

It was soon time to leave for the flight to Paris and the gate displays in the lounge are easy to understand. The main gate area – if you don’t have to go through US pre-clearance is about a 10 minute walk away.

All round a decent lounge if you have to wait in Dublin.