Speaking to Travel Extra‘s Eoghan Corry Michael O’Leary said that Ryanair had shifted 50,000 seats form Dublin to Belfast for Christmas 2024, after their application for extra slots at Dublin airport was turned down under Irish Aviation Authority restrictions
This Christmas will be the first big challenge unless we can turn it into an election issue, and regulations will be in place well before Christmas. We applied for 250,000 to 270,000 extra seats this Christmas, but we haven’t received approval for any of them.
The Minister has to take action, he basically controls the IAA. If the Minister doesn’t act, Ryanair and others will likely pursue legal action and seek an injunction to prevent the IAA from restricting Christmas and future capacity. The timing of obtaining an injunction is uncertain. If a competent Minister acts promptly, it could solve the issue before Christmas. However, with Ryan still in charge and not seeking reelection, the situation remains uncertain. While an injunction may be granted in time for Christmas, the challenge will be having the necessary aircraft available, as they have already been redeployed. 50,000 extra seats have been allocated to Belfast this Christmas in anticipation of potential overflow from Dublin.
The IAA is looking for a cut of a million seats for summer 2025. The IAA is not enthusiastic about this, but they are legally obligated to implement it due to a 2007 road traffic restriction.
At the moment, the IAA are saying we want at least a million less seats so this year. The seat capacity this summer was 26.4m and they’re saying now next year we want proposals for 25.2m seats and even that might be insufficient.
So the answer is nobody really knows now how many seats will be available. But it’s am seats less. Dublin Airport is doing 32m passengers a year so probably 18-19m passengers during the summer season you’re going to take 4- 5pc off that capacity.
We can’t get the capacity we need. we’re growing in Cork we’re growing in Shannon and but we can’t in Dublin. We had planned to grow and build by another three aircraft and an extra million passengers but the three aircraft have gone to Italy and Poland there’s now no growth.
The Department has the authority to direct the IAA and DAA regarding the restriction, which was a valid concern in 2007 but is no longer applicable.
We’re not trying to overturn the planning process. The DAA has already submitted a planning application to Fingal to have this cap lifted, but it will take two, three, or four years depending on judicial reviews and other factors. There are three or four NIMBYs trying to block or restrict it based on various reasons, but not due to road access at Dublin Airport.
We currently have 32m passengers, and road traffic is not an issue. It if was an issue, Fingal should not have approved the second runway, taking capacity to 60m passengers, if they were adhering to their own planning rules.
If you had somebody semi-competent in transport they just ignore it because we’ve Ryan in there I mean the thing with the greens is you’ve Ryan in transport and you’ve Martin in tourism and between the two of them, no action.
The critical infrastructure at Dublin airport has already been built, the second runway. The second runway makes a huge difference. The terminal experience is not great, but it’s not terrible either. People are getting in and out reasonably quickly.
But the problem is, as always, is that DAA have now put in some mother and father planning application with everything they could possibly want for the next five years. Instead of going in with “scrap the cap and give us a sensible extension” at T1, more gates, which is what of course they want, they put in lounges and I mean a tunnel under the taxiway. What does that solve?
Designating Dublin Airport as key infrastructure, same as, let’s say, the data centres are, it could be easily done, but it won’t solve this problem.
We are dealing with a 2007 planning restriction that clearly is no longer relevant, but nobody wants to deal with it. And we, the airlines, and to be fair, the DAA, although they’re the author of this incompetence, are all now forced into taking legal action to get the courts to do what Ryan won’t do and as tell the IAA to back off and let’s keep growing.
We respect the planning process We do not want to overturn the planning process. But way the DAA has gone in for the planning process, but it’s a bit like, you know, going in for retention after you’ve done something you’re supposed to knock it down first, and then you might get planning permission or would you go for retention.
