Ryanair boss issues Dublin Airport cap cost alert and warns of €1k flight price

IRISH people flying home for Christmas will face flight prices two or three times the usual level due to passenger restrictions at Dublin Airport, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has warned.

And it’s not just winter travellers that are facing higher ticket prices with people flying in and out of Dublin for Cheltenham, St Patrick’s Day and the Six Nations rugby games are also due to be hit.

The budget airline boss was in the Dail’s Transport Committee today where he continued to complain about the current passenger cap at Dublin Airport which he claims will dramatically push up prices over the coming months.

There is currently a limit of 32 million passengers per year at Dublin Airport that was put in place during the planning permission for Terminal 2 due to concerns about noise pollution and traffic issues.

The Daa which runs the airport have applied for the cap to be lifted to 40 million which they believe will be of huge economic benefit to Ireland.

However, the application is going through the planning permission process and could take up to 18 more months before there is a decision.

Michael O’Leary wants the Transport Minister to intervene and overrule the process to green light the expansion.

Speaking at the Oireachtas Transport Committee, the Ryanair boss explained how his company has applied for slots at Dublin Airport that would add 270,000 extra seats this Christmas.

However, despite applying for these slots every year, the airline has been turned down this time as Dublin Airport is already running up against the passenger cap for 2024.

He said: “There is going to be a critical issue and I would urge all the politicians here that there is going to be a massive crisis here this Christmas.

“We have applied for all our slots for this winter including the extra slots that we routinely run for extra flights in the October school midterm, Christmas, Cheltenham, the rugby internationals and we didn’t get any of those extra slots because we’re up at the traffic cap.

“The fares to and from Dublin this Christmas will be probably €500 one way and about €1,000 return and the Government and politicians are going to get the blame for it.

“It suits me fine. If you cap Dublin Airport we’ll make out like bandits. I’ll make a fortune this Christmas.

“Airlines are traditionally criticised ‘oh you just put up all your fares at Christmas’ – we don’t actually but because we’re busy all the inbound fares to Dublin are high but we keep them down by adding 270,000 extra flights.”

The airline applied for 90,000 extra seats for the October mid-term, 7,000 for the Six Nations rugby games, 130,000 for St Patrick’s Day, 10,000 for Cheltenham and 7,000 for Premier League matches.

All of these applications were shot down which O’Leary claims will push up the price of flights as they will not be able to add supply to meet the demand.

Political weapon

The Ryanair boss was challenged on this by Senator Ger Craughwell who questioned whether he was trying to use the threat of flight prices as a political weapon to pressure the Government to intervene in the planning process.

However, O’Leary said: “No. We’re getting our position out there first. If we aren’t able to add 270,000 additional seats to and from Dublin this year the flights coming home at Christmas are going to be dramatically higher.

“And we will have all the ‘airlines are profiteering, airlines are putting up the fares at Christmas’ and I want it well known that we are not putting up the fares here because it’s Christmas.

‘Arcane and idiotic’

“We’re putting up the fares because we have an arcane and idiotic traffic cap at Dublin Airport which is preventing us adding 270,000 extra seats.

He added: “It is not us using an economic weapon but people need to understand the consequences.”

Ryanair are planning to add some flights into Belfast instead but the airline only has three aircraft based in that airport so they are limited.