A ‘War of Words’ broke out on Thursday between Ryanair and the operators of Dublin Airport, daa, when Ryanair accused daa of increasing passenger charges by 45%. As a result, Ryanair has announced the cancelation of 17 routes and moved its entire Dublin-based environmentally-friendly Boeing 737-8200 (19 aircraft) to alternative EU airports that incentivise airlines to grow passenger numbers with quieter, lower CO2 emission aircraft.
A lengthy statement released by Ryanair suggested that DAA has a history of mismanagement at Dublin Airport, including understaffing summer security, wasting taxpayers’ money on ill-thought-out infrastructure projects, and failing to support low-cost access and sustainable growth. The DAA is increasing its already excessive charges by a ludicrous 45% to fund its €3bn gold-plated CAPEX programme, which includes a portfolio of unnecessary vanity projects which have no benefit for passengers. A prime example of this is DAA’s €250m cargo tunnel. This tunnel is superfluous and could easily be replaced with a tried and tested low-cost alternative like the crossing system at Cologne Airport – home of Europe’s Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
DAA claims that it wants to grow traffic at Dublin Airport to 40m passengers per annum, but yet has no current plans to expand T1 or T2 to grow passenger and connectivity. DAA should have immediate plans to expand capacity at T1, for example, that could easily integrate low-cost gates into the existing infrastructure, growing connections, capacity, and the economy, but instead, they are fixated on building a €250m tunnel that goes nowhere. DAA has a history of building the wrong infrastructure in the wrong place at exorbitant cost. T2 is a prime example; opened in 2010 at a bloated cost of €2bn. It is located in a cul-de-sac and can’t be expanded. DAA is reversing all the good work done by the Govt. TRSS (Traffic Recovery Support Scheme), which restored Irish passenger numbers to over 100% of pre-Covid levels, with Ryanair growing 117% of pre-covid levels. DAA’s high costs, wasteful CAPEX programs, and broken infrastructure mean Ireland is at risk of becoming like Germany, whose passenger numbers and connectivity are only 75% of pre-COVID levels due to rising and high airport charges. Ryanair calls on DAA to urgently prioritise investment in facilities that are needed, infrastructure, and incentive programs that will underpin passenger growth, reward lower-emission aircraft, and lower charges to stimulate connectivity, which is what Ireland’s growing economy needs.
Later in the day, DAA released a statement in response to the claims made by Ryanair. It rejects the claims made by the airline in respect of the 45% increase in charges in a statement by the DAA CEO, Kenny Jacobs who said, “I love Ryanair and I love the way they sometimes won’t let the facts get in the way of a good story. It is a FALSE claim that charges at Dublin Airport are to increase by 45% in 2024. While the IAA has determined that charges can go up by 6%, we would welcome a bigger increase in charges to allow us to invest more in the service we give our passengers, but we do not set the charges. I am surprised that Ryanair would seek to reconfigure its based aircraft at Dublin Airport this winter when they could pay even lower ultra-low-cost charges in 2024 (VS 2023) if they choose to avail of our sustainability incentives. Ryanair’s claim that Dublin Airport offers no incentives to airlines is also FALSE. A traffic recovery scheme is in place at Dublin Airport that has worked incredibly well and has facilitated the speedy 100% bounce back in activity at Dublin Airport post-Covid. This scheme will remain in place for another 6 months. As the biggest beneficiary of the TRSS scheme, we can understand why Ryanair would like to see it remain in place beyond next March, but we are happy that Dublin Airport’s growth has recovered to pre-pandemic levels and we do not need to incentivise new growth given Dublin Airport has a planning capacity limit of 32 million passengers per annum. Ryanair’s claim that DAA has no plan to invest in new and better infrastructure at Dublin Airport is FALSE. daa has already announced significant capital infrastructure ambitions for both Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport and the details of these will be in our Infrastructure Application which will be made to Fingal County Council before the end of this year. Ryanair’s claim that an underpass is not needed at Dublin Airport is, once again, FALSE. The Underpass is essentially a safety project, which will contribute to effective and efficient airfield operations and maintain operations in the West Apron. We have reviewed all options, including solutions in place at other European airports, and both the aviation regulator and daa agree the underpass solution is the only one from a safety perspective and we never compromise on safety.”
