daa has lodged its response to Fingal County Council’s request for further information on its application to build new infrastructure at Dublin Airport to allow the passenger cap to be lifted to 40m a year.
The original 7,000 page application was submitted by daa in December, but in February the council requested 85 items of further information, totalling 415 sub-queries.
Following a request from daa, the deadline for the return of the information sought was extended in August to this month.
“The critical infrastructure and sustainability projects included in the application set Dublin Airport and Ireland up for the future,” said daa Chief Commercial and Development Officer Vincent Harrison.
“They ensure we grow as the population does, and that we can continue to meet current and future demand for travel which is so important to our economic prosperity.”
Dublin Airport currently has a passenger cap of 32m a year, which was put in place as part of planning permission for the second terminal in 2007.
That cap has now been reached and is expected to be breached by the end of next month by as much as 1m passengers.
“Some have questioned why daa did not simply apply to lift the passenger cap only,” Mr Harrison said.
“Separating the project would have led to accusations of not taking a holistic view of airport planning.”
“Others have compared the process with general planning laws, which is an overly simplistic approach that ignores the complexities of the Irish planning system.”
Dublin Airport is, however, considering lodging an interim planning application that would seek to have the cap increased without any new infrastructure being built, while the main infrastructure application is being considered by the planning authorities – a process likely to take some time.
Last week the High Court granted a stay on a decision by the aviation regulator to cap the number of take-off and landing slots during the busy peak season, in a move that effectively pauses the effect of the cap for now.
Airlines Ryanair and Aer Lingus, along with an organisation representing a number of US airlines, Airlines For America (A4A), had sought for the Irish Aviation Authority’s (IAA) decision to be paused pending the outcome of judicial review proceedings they are bringing in relation to it.
The IAA ruling last month restricted the number of seats on aircraft arriving at and leaving the airport during the busy summer season to 25.2 million.
This would be around a million less than the number that were available over the summer of this year.
The IAA put that limit in place to try to ensure that Dublin Airport remains within its annual passenger cap.
Some residents living near Dublin Airport and environmentalists oppose the lifting of the cap because of the impact it will have on carbon emissions and noise pollution in the area.
