Ryanair seeks judicial review over terminal

RYANAIR has applied for a judicial review of An Bord Pleanála’s decision upholding planning permission for the Dublin Airport Authority’s new terminal, T2.

Ryanair, which claims the terminal is costing €800 million has also sought a review of the Commission for Aviation Regulation’s (CAR) decision to allow the majority of DAA’s “massively inflated” costs for T2 to be recovered through higher passenger charges.

Both applications were filed with the High Court yesterday afternoon.

Ryanair’s head of regulatory affairs Jim Callaghan said: “Ryanair has long been an advocate of a low-cost second terminal at Dublin Airport to cater for the growth of low-fares traffic, which now accounts for the vast majority of traffic in Dublin Airport.

“Ryanair even offered to pay for and build such facilities over five years ago but was blocked by the Government, who preferred to allow the monopoly airport operator to build further massively inefficient facilities at Dublin Airport.

“These two applications for the High Court are aimed at preventing further passenger charge increases and inefficiency at Dublin Airport,” he said.

“The basis of both of these legal challenges is that the T2 facility as proposed by DAA is massively oversized as CAR has now confirmed it costs approximately four times what it should and will double passenger charges at Dublin Airport.

“If the DAA monopoly goes ahead with this ridiculous development, then the users of T2, Aer Lingus, should have to pay for it, not Ryanair’s low-fares passengers who will continue to use the old terminal.”

A spokesman for the Dublin Airport Authority said Ryanair’s €800m figure was “poppycock”, that the terminal building cost €395m and with the additional roads and new pier the total cost was €600m.

He said those costs had been independently verified by a government-appointed agency and had been found to be in line with similar projects overseas.

“We have called on them not to embark on this costly, time-consuming and needless judicial review, which even Michael O’Leary has admitted will fail,” he added.

Meanwhile, Ryanair also confirmed it has reached agreement with its Dublin-based pilots on a new four-year pay deal that it said would significantly improve pay, rosters and terms and conditions for the pilots bringing them into line with the pay and conditions previously negotiated by Ryanair pilots at our other Irish bases.

The new terms come into effect on October 14.

The deal will see the Dublin pilots brought into line with pilots in Shannon and Cork and will mean, among other things, a €10,000 per annum increase in basic pay for captains. It will also mean senior Dublin captains will now be able to earn in excess of €160,000.