Daa chief says Dublin Airport passenger cap could be raised within two years

Terminal 2 and other parts of Dublin Airport went red for World Blood Donor Day last Friday. Daa chief Kenny Jacobs told the Oireachtas transport committee the bid to increase the airport's passenger cap could be achieved within two years.   Picture: Maxwells

The head of airport administrator Daa has said he is hopeful that Dublin Airport’s controversial cap of 32m passengers per year can be raised to 40m within the next two years.

Daa chief executive Kenny Jacobs told the Oireachtas transport committee that, contrary to Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary’s assertion that the application to raise the cap will take five years, his expectation is that a change will be made within the next 24 months.

“I’m hoping we can get the 40m approved within the next two years,” Mr Jacobs said of his organisation’s application to Fingal County Council.

However, he also acknowledged that he is “not a planning expert”.

Mr Jacobs said that he is “concerned” regarding the existing 32m passenger cap that the airport “may be forced into a breach” before the end of 2024, and noted that the airport had processed a “huge” 120,000 passengers last Sunday.

However, he said that the prospect of industrial action being taken by Aer Lingus pilots from next Wednesday, June 26, could “ironically” actually aid in causing the airport to adhere to the passenger cap, given that many flights could be cancelled as a result.

Asked if the Daa had moved too hastily by applying for the new cap last December, Mr Jacobs replied: “No, I wish we’d done it sooner”.

He dismissed the idea, also expressed by Mr O’Leary last week, that the cap would lead to a “massive crisis” for passengers at the end of the year, saying that they don’t need to worry about Christmas”.

Last February, people living next to Dublin Airport, who have had a fraught relationship with the Daa on the back of several separate disputes between the parties, welcomed the fact that the local authority had requested more than 360 additional pieces of information regarding the 40m application, with no progress possible until that information is delivered.

None of that information has yet been submitted, with Daa having had six months to do so from the time of the request.

In briefing the committee, Daa said that the airport is “exploring” the possibility of submitting an interim operational application to raise the cap without the need for infrastructure development.

However, the organisation acknowledged that a decision is required from An Bord Pleanála regarding Daa’s attempt to dispense with two conditions of the 2007 planning granted to the north runway before the cap could be raised in that manner.

Mr Jacobs insisted that Dublin Airport was in compliance with the 32m cap last year, despite both Daa’s own corporate statistics and those of the Department of Transport stating that the cap had been breached by 1.5m passengers.

Daa has said the gross passenger figure at the airport “needs to be adjusted” to remove passengers boarding connecting flights.

In terms of a flight-path issue which has angered locals who are being overflown by flights departing from the airport’s newest north runway, Mr Jacobs said, “I think we’re listening” to those complaints. “You can never do enough listening,” he said.

He said that, despite claims that the flight paths being used are in breach of the 2007 planning permission granted for the runway, “planning doesn’t govern flight paths” adding that “flight paths can evolve”.

“If there is a better path out there that removes noise from the system... then we will look at implementing that in a practical way,” he said.