The vast majority of Irish people coming home this Christmas will be forced to travel by boat due to the Dublin Airport passenger cap, Michael O’Leary has warned.

Speaking after an hour-long meeting with the junior minister at the Department of Transport this morning, the Ryanair CEO said the passenger cap was creating “real life challenges” for Irish people and businesses.

He said Minister James Lawless failed to offer any creative solutions during their meeting – and again urged the Government to step in and direct the IAA to ignore the cap while a planning proposal aimed at increasing it is considered.

Passenger cap

He said he handed the junior minister a draft letter to send to the IAA but added: "We believe he will do nothing about it, just as Eamon Ryan has done nothing about it”.

“These are the real-life challenges here,” he said.

“We've done a deal with Leinster Rugby, for example, to take the team to their matches in Bristol, France and other places this winter.

“We now can't get slots for those flights.

“The Lapland Christmas charters – we now can't get slots for the Lapland flights.

"We can't get slots for the Christmas extra flights, so there are real daily challenges being caused by this and all of this is solvable if Eamon Ryan, the Minister for Transport, simply issues a direction to the IAA to issue these additional slots this winter and next summer while the planning process plays itself out.”

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary and Minister of State James Lawless at Ryanair headquarters in Dublin. Image: Tom Douglas/Newstalk

Before heading into today’s meeting Minister Lawless said he was looking for creative solutions to the problem; however, Mr O’Leary said he heard none of them today.

“Unfortunately, he didn't have any,” he said.

“I mean, we had the only creative solution which was, ‘Here, issue this direction letter to the IAA to order additional slots.’”

Dublin Airport

Mr O’Leary said Minister Lawless had questioned why Ryanair doesn’t send its additional flights to Cork and Shannon

“Well because 60% of the traffic is inbound and it doesn't want to go to Shannon and Cork; it wants to go to Dublin,” he said.

“Lapland at Christmas, the kids don't want to go to Cork or Shannon, they want to go to Lapland.

“The Christmas extras coming in from London and from the UK don't want to go to Cork and Shannon to go home to Dublin or to places around Dublin, they want to go to Dublin.

“We think we'll be able to divert maybe 50,000 of those up to Belfast, but I think the vast majority of Irish people coming home this Christmas will be traveling on ferries.

“We're going back to the future again. You'll all be back on the boats because Eamon Ryan won't issue a letter to the IAA.”

Flight prices

The 32 million passenger cap was introduced by An Bord Pleanala in when it approved the airport’s second terminal in 2007 due to concerns about road traffic access to and from Dublin Airport.

Mr O’Leary has previously warned that the cap will mean €500 one-way flights at Christmas and “vastly higher airfares” next summer.

Speaking after the meeting, Minister Lawless said he would examine all of Ryanair’s proposals, as well as those from other stakeholders like Aer Lingus.

Last week, Dublin Airport confirmed that it expects to breach the cap for the first time by the end of the year.

With reporting from Tom Douglas at Ryanair HQ.