Ryanair and DAA row over discounts

A MAJOR row has broken out between Ryanair and the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) over discounts and passenger numbers.

The DAA said Ryanair has turned down its offer of more than €60 million worth of discounts on airport charges.

It claimed Ryanair is instead demanding €100m in subsidies with no guarantee of any extra traffic for the airport or for the country.

This news comes a day after Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said the airline is “not really an Irish airline anymore” and more European.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner last night, Mr O’Leary expressed his disgust at the breakdown of talks between the airline and the DAA and said the next step for Ryanair is to go to the new government and state its case to them.

Ryanair said last night that it rejects the DAA’s “false claims” about rejecting the airline’s offer to grow its traffic at Dublin Airport.

The DAA said, however, that negotiations between the two companies ended yesterday after “Ryanair’s insistence that it be paid more than €100m in discounts, with no guarantee of any additional traffic”.

The DAA said Ryanair also wanted to be paid more than €10m in discounts for existing passengers at Dublin Airport.

The DAA said it will continue to consider proposals from any airline that offers incremental growth on a sustainable basis.

Meanwhile, Ryanair said the DAA refused to extend a current incentive system to it, even though, it said Aer Lingus was benefiting from the same scheme.

Ryanair also said the DAA proposals meant the airline would receive growth discounts at Dublin only, after traffic losses in Cork and Shannon were made up. It also claimed it would receive just 40% of the discounts generated by its traffic growth.