Dublin Airport operator DAA and Aer Lingus have rejected a suggestion from Minister for Tourism Catherine Martin that the solution to the passenger cap impasse at the national aviation hub can be solved by diverting traffic to regional airports.
Speaking to reporters outside the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation’s (ITIC’s) annual conference on Wednesday in Dublin, the former Green Party deputy leader said regional tourism balance is the solution to the crisis.
Reiterating a point raised by some of her Government colleagues in recent weeks, the Dublin Rathdown TD said there are “no capacity issues” at regional airports such as Shannon and Cork and that the “dispersal of tourists” to regional areas would be a “win win”.
Ms Martin said: “Even if there wasn’t a cap in Dublin Airport, we should be really focusing on regional tourism.”
However, Aer Lingus chief corporate affairs officer Donal Moriarty and DAA chief executive Kenny Jacobs later rejected the suggestion.
On Wednesday afternoon, Mr Jacobs told the ITIC conference that the Government’s suggestion is “naive and simplistic” and “does not reflect how the airlines actually work”.
He said the Government should encourage the airlines “to go to the regions”. However, he said: “By capping Dublin, all you’re doing is immediately costing the Irish economy jobs, you’re hurting the Irish tourism industry and you’re giving Irish aviation and tourism a bad look.”
Mr Moriarty said the suggestion that traffic can be “shoved around” from Dublin to regional airports is not viable because Dublin Airport is a national aviation hub, transferring to other parts of the world while Cork and Shannon are “point-to-point” airports.
“Many passengers arriving in Dublin are not leaving Dublin Airport at all but are connecting on another flight to European destinations,” he said. “It’s that aggregate of demand with point-to-point and connecting traffic that makes the [Dublin] route exist in the first place. It’s not possible to just simply take that route and put it in a regional airport.”
Ms Martin also told the conference that DAA could have moved faster to apply to Fingal County Council to avoid the current crisis.
The State company applied to Fingal County Council in December 2023 to raise the 32 million-a-year upper limit on the number of passengers allowed to travel through the airport to 40 million. But the application has been hit with series of delays and a decision has been pushed out to an indeterminate date.
In the meantime, DAA said last month it expects to exceed the cap by around one million passengers this year, putting it in breach of planning law and prompting the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) to make fewer slots at Dublin Airport available for airlines this winter and next summer.
In an onstage interview at the ITIC conference in Dublin, broadcaster Dearbhail McDonald asked the Minister whether DAA could have moved faster to avert the crisis.
“Well, it does sound like that’s where the delay happened – in the submitting of that planning application, which was nothing to do with Government but the DAA,” Ms Martin said. “So that’s an unfortunate thing and now we are living with that.”
In response to a query, a DAA spokesman said: “Rather than trying to point the finger of blame, all parties would be better served at this stage by everyone being focused and thinking proactively about getting the passenger cap lifted, ensuring Ireland doesn’t lose vital connectivity, jobs, tourism, and economic growth opportunities over the years ahead.”
Mr Jacobs said he does not expect the impasse to be resolved this year.
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