daa, the operator of Dublin Airport, rejects false claims by Ryanair that airport charges at Dublin Airport will increase by 45% next year. Regulated charges at Dublin Airport, which are set by the aviation regulator, the IAA (formerly CAR), and not daa, are set to increase by only 6% in 2024.
Kenny Jacobs, daa’s CEO 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.”
daa announced on May 19th this year (https://www.daa.ie/daa-incentivises-airlines-to-reduce-co2-emissions-with-new-sustainability-measures/) proposals for new sustainability measures to incentivise airlines to operate lower CO₂ emission aircraft at Dublin Airport. Under the new proposed incentive scheme, a low emissions discount will apply to Dublin Airport’s ultra-low cost aeronautical charges, the lowest of any capital city airport in Europe and the airport operator, daa, will charge airlines who fly high emission aircraft more. daa has spent the past four months consulting with airlines including Ryanair regarding how such a scheme would work. Ryanair’s announcement today is therefore premature as the formal charges consultation details are due to be circulated to airline customers in the coming days.
