Ideological flight of fancy can only lead to a terminal form of madness

FIVE euro. That’s what it costs to land a passenger in Dublin. To put it more precisely, that, on average, is what it costs an airline to land a passenger in Dublin.

And that €5 is, of course, built into the cost of the passenger's ticket.

It's possible that, if Dublin airport was cheaper to run, the €5 could be reduced a bit. And of course, if Dublin airport was more expensive to run, the €5 could increase.

But could it really be that a row over a fiver has threatened to destabilise the Government? Day after day this past week we can hear them snapping at each other, sending out their watchdogs to bleat about identity and difference. While there is no possibility (sadly) that it will bring the Government down, there is every possibility that it will lead to a hodgepodge of a decision that will serve only the petty and expedient interests of the parties in government.

Everyone, in government, opposition and everywhere else, agrees about a few things. Dublin airport is too small. Aer Rianta, who used to own the airport before the company was broken up, argued for permission to extend the airport for years. Its passenger facilities have been inadequate for a long time and are now seriously deficient.

And gradually Dublin airport has moved from being an airport facing overcrowding and pressure to being an airport in crisis. Investment in new facilities is an absolute essential. If it doesn't happen, then ultimately safety at the airport will be compromised, and tourism into Dublin will be undermined.

But while everyone agrees about these things, the Government has stalled and stalled and stalled. Why? It's not because the Government doesn't believe an investment is necessary, or because we can't afford to make it. It's because of a row over who should own and operate the extra passenger facilities.

Extra passenger facilities will require a new terminal. Although it doesn't apply anywhere else in Europe, and although nobody can think of an example that works well anywhere in the world, the PDs want this new terminal to go into competition with the existing terminal. That means they want someone other than the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA), who own the existing terminal, to own the new one (although after weeks of argument, it seems they might not object to the DAA building the new terminal, and presumably paying for it!).

What is an airport terminal? It's essentially, nowadays, a shopping centre with passenger facilities. A terminal can be very luxurious or it can be very basic. Every terminal has to have places where passengers can check in for their flights when they're on the way out, and collect their luggage when they're on the way home. And all airport operators know that if a terminal is to make money, it has to have facilities that will enable passengers, while they're waiting for their flights, to spend money. It's the shops, the restaurants and the car parks that are the big revenue generators for the terminal operators. But an airport is about much more than the terminal. It also has to be a place where airplanes can take off and land, on time, efficiently and safely. That means airport operators, as opposed to terminal operators, have to maintain the runways, the fire brigade, the air traffic control all the things that ensure the planes come and go as they should.

All of that happens, don't forget, at the cost of €5 per passenger.

All over the world, people have found that it makes more sense, if a number of terminals are needed within the one airport, that one authority should run the lot. If this debate was about building a second airport, it might make some sense to allow them to compete, but the only consequence of having two terminals competing within an airport would be chaos.

In effect you'd have three operators two of them operating terminals, with a huge vested interest in maximising the number of passengers buying in their shops and eating in their restaurant. The third operator would be running the runways, scheduling the flights, taking care of safety, and charging the other two whatever the market would bear.

HERE'S a complicated question. Who would decide what airlines used which terminals? In theory, the airlines would all opt for the terminal offering the lowest charges. In practice, that would mean airlines flitting from terminal to terminal as charges fluctuate, a ludicrous proposition.

In reality, of course, what Dublin needs is an extra terminal, and traffic to and from that terminal to be divided on a rational and sensible basis. As a passenger, you need to know what terminal you're heading for, so you'll know what route to take and where to park. The only proposition that makes sense, in terms of how two terminals are managed, is to divide them up according to traffic. Say, for example, Terminal 1 was all flights to and from Europe and the US, and Terminal 2 was all domestic flights and all flights to Britain. Making that sort of rational decision, though, especially in circumstances where it's not just the passenger terminals but all the other bits and pieces of an airport that have to be considered, leads inevitably to the conclusion that the only thing that makes sense is to have one overall authority in charge.

The only possible reason for pursuing this nonsensical notion that you can have one side of an airport competing with the other side is that the PDs want to have an ideological victory.

Or maybe they're too short-sighted to realise that while competition works in a lot of areas, there are places where it can do more harm than good.

But so wrapped up are they in the pursuit of ideology we have now arrived at a point where two totally unrelated decisions have become tied up with each other. There is no connection whatever between the needs of Dublin airport and the future of Aer Lingus. But in the interests of a bit of ideological huckstering, the Government has now talked itself into a position where decisions on one issue can only be made in the context of decisions on the other.

This is mad, and it's irresponsible. The Government is trying to position itself in such a way as to say that Fianna Fáil won a bit on Aer Lingus if the PDs win a bit on the airport. It won't matter what the right decisions are, as long as it can be spun into a draw between the Government parties.

I don't have time here to go into the ins and outs of Aer Lingus and what needs to be done there although there is room to say that the way they have dealt with Aer Lingus so far has been a monument to incompetence.

But if FF and the PDs insist on fighting these issues to a point where they can claim a draw, the losers will be Aer Lingus, Dublin airport, and the people.