Emerald Airlines CEO Keith Butler has called for “real leadership” from the Irish Government to address concerns over a seat capacity cap at Dublin Airport, which is set to be reduced to 25.2m for the upcoming summer season.
The Irish Aviation Authority’s decision to limit seat capacity comes as airlines express frustration, claiming it forces them to curtail services just when they are looking to expand.
Butler criticized the cap as an “artificial, man-made” issue unrelated to actual airport capacity and urged Taoiseach Simon Harris to take immediate action to find practical solutions.
While Emerald Airlines operates as a standalone carrier with less impact from the cuts, Butler noted that alternative airports like Shannon and Cork are not viable substitutes for Dublin due to competition with numerous European hubs, limiting their operational flexibility.
Emerald Airlines CEO Keith Butler shared “just give a bit of breathing space to allow the airport to continue to grow whilst the full planning permission for the 40m increased cap is delivered. very stakeholder in this process has admitted it’s madness, the Taoiseach even last weekend admitted the situation was madness. We think it’s time that leadership is shown to address this artificial, man-made cap, which has nothing to do with airport capacity, has nothing to do with local infrastructure capacity at this point.
“Any additional flights that we may put on – for big events, the Six Nations Rugby or Cheltenham or any major sporting or cultural events – we won’t be able to put on extra capacity. No airline will be able to put on extra capacity. We have to find ways now of cutting what we had this year, never mind considering any additional capacity. For those opportunities, we’ll have to look elsewhere. Shannon is not a realistic substitute to Dublin. When airlines are assessing where they put their capacity, they’re looking at airports all across Europe. So Cork and Shannon do not just compete with Dublin for capacity, they compete with Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester and hundreds of other airports around Europe.”
