Christmas flights at Dublin Airport won't be impacted despite nearing passenger limits
End The Daa, Kenny The Numbers Year Or Of By “slightly Of Less” Be 32 Will Million Said Jacobs, Chief Executive Passenger
There will be “no disruption” for people travelling through Dublin Airport this Christmas as a result of it coming precariously close to hitting its limit of 32 million passengers in a year, the chief executive of daa has said.
This limit is set under Dublin Airport’s planning permission from Fingal County Council, with the daa set to submit a new application on December 15 which it hopes will allow it to increase capacity to 40 million passengers a year. This planning application could take up to two years.
Speaking at a meeting of the Oireachtas Transport Committee, Kenny Jacobs, chief executive of daa, said that he expects the number of passengers travelling to and from the airport by the end of the year to be 32 million or “slightly less”.
“There are still six weeks to go, you might have two very bad weeks of weather. Travel demand is a little bit softer this winter,” he said, adding that he believes that the limit will not be breached this year.
When asked if passengers could see their flights disrupted or re-routed to different airports if the limit was in fact hit, Mr Jacobs assured politicians that this would not be the case.
"There will be no disruption that any people need to be worried about family members coming home this Christmas,” he said.
Mr Jacobs said there are conversations going on with airlines about what is going to happen in 2024 as Dublin Airport will be complying with the 32 million limit until they get the green light to increase capacity.
He said daa is “actively managing down capacity” by taking out transit passengers, removing airline growth incentives, and making difficult choices on charter flights and non-scheduled flights.
Mr Jacobs said daa would like to see the cap lifted as he believes caps do not work, citing the recently removed limit for Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.
While the cap was imposed, airlines such as Air France-KLM simply moved hub traffic to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and was not instead moved to regional airports.
“A cap at Dublin Airport will really just make the airline say will we move to another big hub airport like Manchester or like Edinburgh,” he said. “That's not good for jobs here in Ireland.”
A daa analysis said that if the Dublin Airport cap is not raised, 16,000 new jobs could be lost, air fares will go up as seats are limited and newer more efficient aircraft are located elsewhere.