The Commission for Aviation Regulation (CAR) decision on Dublin Airport passenger charges will have a detrimental impact on the number of staff that will be allowed by the regulator in vital security, cleaning and other key roles at the airport over the next four years. This runs contrary to the interests of airport users, our passengers and airline partners, who share our desire for efficiency, high quality service and investment in vital strategic infrastructure.
CAR’s consultants are disallowing security staff each year and up to 240 of the staff needed at Dublin Airport by 2026, which greatly undermines daa’s proposition to keep queues below 30 minutes (a CAR service quality target).
The decision disregards the operational lessons learned from COVID19 and the necessity for even greater staff numbers in key operational areas.
Despite the almost unanimous call from our passengers, stakeholders and policy makers to mandate daa to recruit even greater numbers at Dublin Airport to further improve the efficiency and quality of passenger experience this appears to have fallen on deaf ears.
daa has always said that it is vital that passenger charges are set at a level which allows Dublin Airport to meet the challenge of recovering from the COVID pandemic and to deliver a high-quality service.
While any change in passenger charges has virtually no discernible impact on the price an airline charges for a flight, it has a material effect on the standard of customer service and the level of capacity that Dublin Airport is able to provide as we have repeatedly warned over a number of years.
daa will now take time over the Christmas and New Year holidays to reflect on CAR’s determination. However, it is patently clear that CAR’s decision is a major financial obstacle to what our passengers require and deserve.
Noting CAR’s decision to drop this desktop analysis on Dublin Airport’s busiest day of the Christmas Season (December 23), as CAR closed its offices until January 2, while daa staff will work through the Christmas and the New Year holidays to ensure passengers’ reunions, holidays and homecomings will be facilitated, daa Chairman, Basil Geoghegan said:
“Yet again, the Irish taxpayer is short changed by CAR in its financial allowances for airport staffing, despite the obvious needs of passengers and customers.”
