Dublin Airport operators warn politicians about passenger limits

James Cox

The operators of Dublin Airport will warn politicians today about the impact passenger restrictions will have on the airport.

Daa is to lodge a planning application by the end of the year to have the cap of 32 million passengers a year increased.

Daa will appear before the Oireachtas Transport Committee today as it looks to have the cap on the number of passengers it can carry increased.

It says scheduled passenger services won't be cancelled, but ad hoc flights will be affected if the cap isn't increased.

Cathal Crowe, Fianna Fáil spokesperson for aviation and tourism, said there should be a rebalancing with regional airports.

Mr Crowe told Newstalk: "In my view today, and I'll be expressing this in the chamber in a while, of course we need to do something in the context of Dublin. But we can't be blind to the fact there are four airports in the rest of Ireland all vying for a 10 per cent market share."

Mr Crowe added: "The first casualties of this cap would be business aviation, and some people say 'so what? what does it matter those small jets going in and out?'

"Well, we have many multinational companies based in Ireland. The managers and chief executives of those fly in and out, they are very high value clients, so I would say they do matter to Ireland."