Dublin and Cork airports to cut charges to kickstart summer air travel

Discounts will be applied based on the number of passengers delivered.

Check-in area at Cork Airport during the coronavirus global pandemic. Pic; Larry Cummins

Cork and Dublin airports will introduce discounted landing charges to help kickstart air travel next summer.

Daa, the operator of both airports is hoping the cut in charges will encourage airlines to resume services that have been curtailed or dropped entirely due to Covid-19.

Passenger numbers at Dublin Airport are down by 77% compared to last year, while traffic at Cork is down 79%. So far this year, Dublin Airport has lost 24.4 million passengers due to the impact of the pandemic while Cork Airport has lost almost two million passengers.

Ryanair also took the decision to shut its base from Cork over the winter.

At Dublin Airport the discount scheme will see a 50% reduction in landing charges in a three month period if the airline can deliver more than 50% of the number of passengers it had in the same quarter in 2019/2020. If an airline has more than 70% of the passengers it had at Dublin the previous year, then all passengers above that level are free for the airline in question.

If Dublin Airport's airline customers from 2019 carried 80% of their passenger total from last year in 2021/22, Dublin Airport will be rebating €50 million worth of airport charges.

While the discount charge scheme will need to be approved by the board of the data it is understood the discount scheme for Cork will operate in a similar manner to Dublin with discounts offered based on the level of passenger numbers.

Cork Airport already operates a graduated discount scheme for new routes which sees no landing charges imposed on the first year of a new route which is reduced by 20% each year so that a new route does not pay full charges until year six.