Dublin Airport’s expansion plans are “not fair to residents”, an aviation expert has said. 

Currently, the number of passengers who can travel through the airport is capped at 32 million a year.

The DAA is seeking planning permission from Fingal County Council to raise that figure to 40 million and expand the airport accordingly.

“There’ll be nine new gates,” Air & Travel Magazine Editor Eoghan Corry told The Hard Shoulder. 

“There’s not going to be a new terminal, we have two of those already in Dublin Airport.

“There’s going to be three new Aer Lingus gates; that means aircraft will be able to come over to the terminal to load and there’ll be six new ones for Ryanair.”

The expansion has the support of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar who said there is a “real risk” Ireland could otherwise lose out on business from the aviation sector.

However, former Aer Arann boss Pádraig Ó Céidigh said the extra passengers would make travelling through the airport “very difficult”.

“They’re putting more and more people, an extra eight million into this squeezebox,” he said.

“All you’re going to have is more and more pressure on the existing resources.”

More regional flights

Mr Ó Céidigh also said there should be a greater focus on airports outside of the capital.

“I don’t think it’s good socioeconomic policy for Dublin or for the country, quite frankly,” he said.

“I believe very strongly that Cork Airport, Shannon Airport and Knock Airport should be developed further and there should be diversion of some of the flights and routes to those airports - rather than focusing so much on Dublin.

“It’s not fair to the residents of Dublin [or] to the workers of Dublin.”

Despite this, he backed plans to build a third terminal not owned by the DAA.

“We should have a third terminal and we should have an independent terminal,” he said.

“There should be competition that Ryanair, Aer Lingus and any other airline that are using Dublin Airport, that they don’t have to be stuck in a kind of monopolistic situation [where] they’ve no choice but to go through a DAA terminal.”

You can listen back here:

Main image: Passengers disembark from planes at Dublin Airport. Image: Phil Crean A / Alamy