Planners could give Dublin Airport the green light to handle 40 million passengers a-year in coming months, raising a controversial cap at the country’s biggest gateway, Kenny Jacobs, chief executive of DAA, predicts.
State airports company DAA recently answered questions posed by Fingal County Council on the firm’s application to raise the current passenger limit from 32 million a-year to 40 million.
DAA now hopes that the council will approve the proposal some time in the first three months of next year, as Fingal’s own development plan provides for 40 million passengers using the airport every year, according to Mr Jacobs.
However, he believes that any decision will face appeals, making the timing of a final decision uncertain. “It would be great if we had definite timelines for planning in Ireland,” he said, dubbing the current system was “too open-ended”.
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Mr Jacobs was speaking on Wednesday as airlines kicked off a legal challenge to the passenger cap in a move expected to end up before the European courts.
He also confirmed that DAA is likely to lodge a second application seeking to have the cap raised to 36 million within the next eight weeks.
This focuses only on the cap and does not involve seeking permission to build anything. The earlier application for an increase to 40 million is part of an overall proposal to expand the airport’s facilities.
Dublin Airport is poised to breach the cap this year after the total number of passengers that passed through there reached 31 million during a record-breaking November.
DAA reported earlier on Wednesday that almost 2.3 million travellers passed through its terminal doors last month, while 81,000 used the airport to transfer between flights. Both figures were up 3 per cent on November 2023.
Mr Jacobs calculated that the airport this year is likely to handle 33 million passengers, but said that it could have been 33.75 million if DAA had not taken steps to ease demand from airlines.
They included dropping incentives for carriers operating at Dublin.
He estimated that the total would hit 35 million next year, as airlines have already sought enough take-off and landing slots at the airport to accommodate almost an extra one million passengers during summer 2025.
The High Court last month blocked the Irish Aviation Authority from taking the planning cap into account and limiting available slots at Dublin Airport next summer.
This paved the way for airlines to seek extra seats for next summer. Mr Jacobs said that going on what carriers have already sought, and are likely to do in coming weeks, the cap will be breached next year also.
On Wednesday, the a High Court judge said he would refer questions surrounding the planning cap and slot allocations to the European courts, as they involve questions of EU law.
Aer Lingus, Ryanair and a group of North American airlines took the proceedings.
Mr Jacobs also welcomed commitments from the three main political parties to deal with the cap in their election manifestos. He added that DAA hoped the issue would form part of the next administration’s programme for government.
Cork Airport, the second biggest in the State, continued growing last month, handling 201,000 passengers, 5 per cent more than in November 2023.
An expanded Air France service to Paris and TUI flights to Dalaman in Turkey will feature on its summer schedule.
Cork will also have extra flights to Bristol and Edinburgh to accommodate rugby fans travelling to Six Nations games early next year, “picking up demand that Dublin is not able to accommodate due to the passenger cap”, a DAA statement noted.
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