Saturday, August 17, 2024 Ryanair urges the Irish Government to scrap Dublin Airport’s 32m passenger cap, which threatens tourism and raises fares. Ryanair, Ireland’s leading airline, has urged the Irish Government to abolish the 32 million passenger traffic cap at Dublin Airport, arguing that it stifles the growth of Irish tourism and inflates air travel costs. Recently, airlines operating from Dublin Airport have been informed that additional slots for upcoming winter holiday flights and major sporting events, including Rugby Internationals and Premier League matches, will not be available.
The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) has now proposed reducing the Summer 2025 traffic by up to one million passengers to adhere to this cap, a move that Ryanair warns will harm Irish tourism, threaten jobs, and significantly increase ticket prices for Irish families planning holidays in 2025. Introduced in 2007, the traffic cap was initially intended to manage road congestion anticipated with Dublin reaching 32 million passengers. However, Ryanair points out that this concern is outdated due to improved public transportation options, like bus services, which have alleviated road traffic around the airport.
With no current strain on road infrastructure, Ryanair contends that the cap is not only unnecessary but also detrimental, and it is time for the government to discard it to foster tourism growth and economic benefits. Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said: “We have been calling for 2 years on Transport Minister Eamon Ryan to scrap this stupid 2007 traffic cap. Sadly, he has failed to act, preferring to hide behind “the planning process”.
This planning restriction, which dates from 2007, was designed to address fears that road access to/from the airport would not be able to facilitate traffic over 32m per year. It is clear that this concern is no longer valid and since road traffic is not an issue, Minister Ryan should instruct the IAA to ignore this 17-year-old cap. Dublin Airport’s recent inauguration of a second runway has expanded its capacity to accommodate up to 60 million passengers annually.
Despite this significant enhancement, the Transport Minister has yet to move forward with eliminating the outdated traffic cap that restricts the airport’s growth. In light of the minister’s inaction, the call has now been extended to the broader government, under the leadership of Simon Harris, to urgently remove this limitation and enable the expansion of Irish tourism and employment opportunities for 2025. Continued adherence to this cap could have dire consequences.
If the Irish Aviation Authority’s (IAA) current proposals to maintain the cap are implemented, Dublin-based airlines will be unable to increase flights during the upcoming Christmas season. More troubling is the projected reduction in available seats by one million during the summer of 2025. Such reductions are expected to severely impact Irish tourism and employment, leading to a spike in airfare costs for Irish citizens and their families planning vacations in the summer of 2025.
This situation underscores the crucial need for government action to allow Dublin Airport’s traffic to grow, thereby keeping air travel affordable for the public. Irish tourism and Irish jobs should not be damaged by a 17-year-old, defective planning restriction, or an incompetent Transport Minister. An effective Transport Minister would scrap this cap.
Since he won’t, we now call on the wider Irish Govt to scrap this cap and allow Dublin Airport, Irish airlines and Irish tourism to continue to grow Irish traffic and jobs in Winter 2024 and Summer 2025.”.
