Dublin Airport to remain strained this summer

Dublin Airport will remain strained through the summer holidays, Dalton Philips, chief executive of its owner, State company DAA, warned on Monday.

Mr Philips spoke as DAA, responsible for Cork and Dublin Airports, confirmed that Covid travel curbs cost it €387 million through 2020 and 2021.

He noted that these losses left DAA facing 2022 with a “significantly diminished” workforce, just months before the steepest rise in air travel in the State airports company’s history.

Mr Philips stressed that while DAA and its staff were working to address this, it would “likely result in strained operations through coming busy, summer months”.

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Dublin Airport expects more passengers in June and July than it handled during those months in 2019, when total traveller numbers set a new record of 32.9 million.

DAA will double Dublin’s security officer numbers to 920 over coming weeks, while it continues to open new lanes and take other steps to cut congestion.

“As a result, queue wait times at Dublin Airport security screening are now sub 45 minutes for most passengers, but vulnerabilities remain,” Mr Philips said.

He added that the airport was working hard to avoid measures taken by other European airports to deal with bottlenecks – some of which caused flight cancellations – but warned that risks remain.

Delays that caused about 1,000 people to miss flights on the last Sunday in May catapulted Dublin Airport into a political storm.

Rocketing passenger numbers combined with labour shortages have hit other services also, including airline baggage handling, ground staff and catering.

DAA lost €103 million in 2021 following major cost cuts in 2020. The group’s turnover was €324 million.

Last year 8.7 million people passed through its airports, 10 per cent more than in 2020, the pandemic’s first year, but about one-quarter of 2019’s total, 35.5 million.

Its annual report shows that Mr Philips’ pay was cut last year, but not at the same rate as in 2020, when passenger numbers collapsed in the face of State pandemic curbs.

His total package came to €386,120, including a basic salary of €235,903, less than his contracted total of €250,000, and pension and benefits totalling €150,216.

Mr Philips received €216,724 basic pay in 2020, Covid’s worst year, while he received €145,546 in pension and benefits.

In 2019, DAA paid Mr Philips a total of €398,641, including full basic salary of €250,000, with pension and benefits accounting for the balance.

DAA invested €163 million last year, mostly on three projects: building Dublin Airport’s third runway, reconstructing Cork Airport’s runway, and on updating hold baggage security screening.

Losses included €1.6 million set aside to pay for a voluntary severance scheme begun in 2020, which cost just short of €100 million that year. About 1,000 workers left the business in the Republic during Covid-19.

The State company plans to invest more than €2 billion on Dublin Airport to prepare it to cope with up to 40 million passengers a year by the end of this decade.

Mr Philips is leaving the company in September, when he will join convenience foods group Greencore as chief executive.