Ryanair has called on the Irish Government to scrap the 32m Dublin Airport traffic cap, which is now damaging growth in Irish tourism, and increasing the cost of air travel. Over the past 2 weeks, the airlines at Dublin Airport have been warned they will not receive extra slots for Christmas flights this winter or sporting events such as Rugby Internationals and Premier League matches. Now the IAA has suggested that in order to comply with the 32m traffic cap, Summer 2025 traffic at Dublin must be reduced by up to 1m passengers.
Ryanair highlighted that this 17-year-old traffic cap should no longer apply because it was introduced in 2007 to address then concerns that road traffic to/from Dublin Airport would exceed road capacity when Dublin reached 32m passengers. No such strain exists and road traffic around Dublin Airport is moving freely, thanks to a large switch to public transport (bus services) to/from the airport. Since the circumstances have changed, and there is no threat to road traffic, the Irish Govt should now act to scrap this unnecessary but deeply damaging 2007 traffic cap.
Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said:
“We have been calling for 2 years on Transport Minister Eamon Ryan to scrap this stupid 2007 traffic cap. Sadly, he has failed to act, preferring to hide behind “the planning process”.
Dublin Airport has recently opened a 2nd runway, taking Dublin’s capacity up to 60m passengers p.a. yet our Transport Minister refuses to act to scrap this outdated traffic cap to let Dublin Airport grow. Since the Transport Minister won’t act, we now call on the wider Govt, led by Simon Harris to take urgent action to scrap the cap to allow Irish tourism and jobs to grow in 2025.
If the latest proposals from the IAA to comply with this outdated cap proceed, then airlines based at Dublin will not be able to add extra flights this Christmas, and more worryingly, the number at seats at Dublin Airport will be cut by 1m in Summer 2025.“
