Renewed call to lift Dublin Airport passenger cap following busiest ever November
December 6, 2024
With the High Court hearing on potential slot re-allocation starting today, daa continues to push for the lifting of a historic restriction that restricts its total passengers to 32 million a year; a total that will likely be breached this year despite ongoing mitigating measures to curb numbers. Daa’s ongoing Infrastructure Application is seeking a new cap of 40 million passengers annually.
With almost 2.3 million passengers passing through Dublin Airport’s doors last month (representing the busiest November ever in the airport’s 84-year history), nearly 31 million passengers have travelled through the airport so far this year, a 5% increase on 2023. However, daa remains frustrated at its requirement to “take the necessary measures to dampen demand to comply with the 32 million terminals passengers cap”.
The cap was originally instated by the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) in 2007 as part of the conditions accompanying the building of the airport’s second terminal. However, in October, the IAA confirmed the slot cap for Dublin Airport’s upcoming summer 2025 season, imposing a previously drafted capacity limit of 25.2 million seats. Winter capacity (running from 26 October 2024 to 29 March 2025) was also set at 14.4 million seats
Although a recent High Court ruling has paused the intended summer cap (a decision that will also be reviewed in the ongoing hearing), with demand predicted to “once again be very high in December,” daa “continues to warn that passenger numbers through its terminals will exceed 32 million and will be over 33 million for the full year 2024”. Last week, the High Court indicated that the decision may be passed to the European Court of Justice – something daa CEO Kenny Jacobs welcomed as “encouraging” and “underscores the complexities involved”.
“The importance of resolving the cap issue was highlighted by the main parties in the recent general election and we look forward to working with the new government on the issue,” continued Jacobs. “Ultimately, we will need to finds a solution to the situation in which Ireland’s main gateway is artificially constrained, with all the negative knock-on effects for jobs, the economy, tourism and connectivity”.
